Scotland for Gardeners by Ken Cox

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Scotland for Gardeners

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Scotland for Gardeners t h e u lt i m at e g u i d e to s c ot t i s h g a r d e n s , nurseries and garden centres Kenneth Cox Photography by Ray Cox

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This edition first published in 2014 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh eh9 1qs www.birlinn.co.uk Copyright Š 2014 Kenneth Cox See p. 505 for details of photographic copyright The moral right of Kenneth Cox to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher. isbn: 978 1 78027 189 7 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Designed and typeset by Mark Blackadder Every effort has been made to ensure that this book is as up to date as possible. Some information, however, such as contact details and opening times is liable to change.

The publishers cannot accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of this book, or for any material on third-party websites.

Title page illustration: Crathes Castle

Printed and bound in China

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Contents

Introduction

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A Short History of Gardening in Scotland

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So What Makes a Good Garden?

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Scottish Gardening ‘Style’ and What Makes a ‘Scottish Garden’

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The ‘Existential Gardener’: What Makes a Gardener Garden?

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The Conservation and Preservation of Scotland’s Gardens

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The Scottish Tourist Industry: Marketing and Promoting Scottish Gardens

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Problems and Issues Facing Scottish Gardens and Horticulture

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Criteria for Entry in Scotland for Gardeners

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Getting Around Scotland and Suggested Garden Itineraries

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How To Use This Book

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Symbols

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Scotland for Gardeners North (including Orkney and Shetland): Loch Ness, Black Isle, Caithness and East Sutherland

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North-west: West Sutherland, Skye and Outer Hebrides

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North-east: Aberdeenshire, Don and Dee valleys north to Moray Firth and across to A9

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East central: Angus, Perthshire, Fife

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Argyll

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West central: Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Arran and Bute, Glasgow to Stirling and the Trossachs

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South-west: Dumfries and Galloway

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South-east: Lothians and Borders west to M74

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Scotland’s Garden Centre Chains

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Horticultural Societies and Organisations; Tourism and Environmental Bodies

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The Best of Scotland for Gardeners Lists

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Bibliography

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Acknowledgements and Photographic Credits

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Index

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Introduction

I’m convinced that Scotland has a collection of the finest gardens, relative to its size, of any country in the world. That’s my belief and I’d like to think that this book provides the evidence. First-time visitors are amazed at the diversity: from hidden walled gardens of enormous size or strange shape, to swaying semitropical plants on windy seasides, ferry journeys to secret plant paradises, packed woodlands of towering Himalayan treasures, sculptured stones carved with arcane riddles, vast expanses of aristocratic estates and small town gardens filled with tiny alpine treasures. These are just a few examples of the surprises and delights in store for those who take the time to explore the gardens of Scotland.

Though I’ve lived in Scotland most of my life, in common with most of us I’d not seen the half of it. All I needed was a good excuse to go and see for myself all those places I’d heard or read about but never got around to visiting. It did not take long for word to get around, and with all the suggestions, my gardens quest in 2007–09 turned into a two-year marathon resulting in almost 600 entries. And the second edition took me to a further 150 gardens and nurseries as well as revisiting many old friends. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to travel the country, meeting many of Scotland’s finest gardeners and nurserymen as they showed me their treasures. This is a guidebook, certainly, but also very much a celebration of Scottish horticulture, both historical and contemporary.

Some of Scotland’s gardens are well known internationally: Crarae; Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh; Inverewe; Crathes and many more. Needless to say, these gardens are included, as are all the gardens which open for significant periods through the months of spring and summer. The book also features over 200 private gardens, many of which open mainly under the banner of Scotland’s Gardens (SG; formerly Scotland’s Gardens Scheme) perhaps once or twice a year, some only every second year. Many are happy to accept visitors outside official opening times, but only by appointment. The garden centres and most of the nurseries listed open to visitors; a few are principally mail-order businesses and do not encourage personal callers. Every garden and nursery listed has something to offer. Some are wonderful at any time, for others it pays to visit mainly when their star turns are at their peak, whether these are snowdrops, rhododendrons, roses or perennials. The book also covers a wealth of specialist societies, organic gardens, allotments, community gardens and gardens used for therapy, as well as some of the country’s most outstanding woodlands and wildflower sites. Land art is also covered in some detail. Gardens can and should be deemed part of Scotland’s cultural and artistic wealth and heritage, in the

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same way our historic buildings are. Gardens are complex and dynamic entities which evolve over time, providing a great deal of pleasure both to those who create and those who admire them.

As well as describing gardens and nurseries, I have tried to consider Scotland’s garden heritage in the widest context, examining its contribution to culture, landscape, architecture, history, pleasure and leisure. I examine gardens’ historical importance, plant collections, design and aesthetics, and monitor how actively each site is being gardened. My aim has been to evaluate what we have in Scotland, how good it is, how safe or at risk this heritage is, and how things may change in the future. From time to time I have suggested ways that gardens might be improved. I realise that some might find all this controversial or presumptuous, but I hope that with the inevitable time constraints most people have, readers will find the assessments useful so they can choose to go and visit gardens most suited to their tastes and enthusiasms. It goes without saying that assessing gardens is a subjective exercise, and I don’t expect readers to agree with everything I say. My aim is not to criticise, but to celebrate Scotland’s magnificent horticultural tradition in its widest sense. Above all, I want to encourage everyone, whether resident in Scotland or just visiting, to step out and experience this country’s horticultural wonders.

A group of garden designers and journalists under the banner Thinkin Gardens held a symposium at RHS Wisley in 2007. Garden writer Stephen Anderson argued that it should be more widely accepted that gardens can be written about with an analytic, deconstructive eye. He suggests that too many people are frightened of the idea of gardens being approached this way, and the word ‘criticism’ is seen as inevitably pejorative. In fact constructive criticism is the greatest respect a garden can be paid; it may seek to argue the writer’s opinions, of what is good and possibly bad about a garden, but more importantly it will show how a garden makes its effects, and give it a wider cultural context by comparing it to other gardens. It should demonstrate a garden’s ambitions and the extent to which they are achieved. To this I would add that unless we are prepared to judge or evaluate gardens properly, we cannot address the issues of whether gardens can and should be conserved and how conservation should be managed and funded.

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A Short History of Gardening in Scotland Scots have been referred to as ‘a nation of gardeners’, but this is probably only in the last 250 years or so. Scots cannot boast the 1000 to 2000-year garden history of Italy or Japan. Scotland certainly had medicinal and monastic gardens during the Middle Ages, most of which were destroyed by cross-border warring or declined after the Reformation. Traveller accounts of Scotland up until the mid eighteenth century lead us to believe that the general Scots population had little or no interest in gardening or plant cultivation. In his History of Greater Britain of 1521 John Major wrote of the Scots: ‘Neither do they plant trees or hedges for their orchards, nor do they dung the land.’ In the seventeenth century Fynes Moryson wrote: ‘in the northern parts of England they have small pleasantness, goodness, or abundance of Fruites and Flowers, so in Scotland they must have lesse or none at all’. Dr Johnson, travelling later in the eighteenth century, was similarly unimpressed. Much of this may have been due to his general level of peevishness, but he was evidently disappointed in most of the gardens he saw, though ironically Johnson’s biographer and travelling companion, James Boswell, had a fine family garden at Auchinleck in Ayrshire.

My grandfather, Euan Cox, admits in his History of Gardening in Scotland that most travellers were so badly fed in Scotland in those days that they tended to assume that the extremely narrow diet, based on the tiny range of crops grown, must have been due to ignorance or laziness. Even John Claudius Loudon, himself a Scot, writing in 1834, relates how Scottish gardeners have less skill than their southern counterparts (themselves often émigré Scots): ‘Gardeners in Scotland have no idea of the care and expense taken and incurred in England to protect the blossoms of fruit trees.’ He goes on to list all the errors such gardeners make and then concludes that ‘Few country gentlemen in Scotland would go to the necessary expense to remedy these practices even if they were apprised of them.’

Were these assessments fair? There are reports of significant Scottish gardens from the seventeenth century and earlier. In his book The Landscaping of Scotland, garden historian Christopher Dingwall lists several significant seventeenth-century gardens and landscapes, of which little or no trace remains today.

These include Pinkie, Saltoun House (four walled gardens), Lethington Castle (now known as Lennoxlove), all in East Lothian, Dalkeith Palace and Hatton House near Edinburgh, and Coltness House and Hamilton Palace, in Lanarkshire. Daniel Defoe in his account of his extensive tour of Scotland in the 1720s describes Drumlanrig near Dumfries as ‘a palace so glorious, gardens so fine, and

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every thing so truly magnificent, and all in a wild, mountainous country’. In his account Journey through Scotland (1732) John Macky is equally impressed. In contrast, Reverend William Gilpin in his 1776 account, waxes lyrical on other Scottish gardens but lambasts Drumlanrig: ‘what contrivance hath been used to deform all this beauty . . . a vile waste of expense’. As Suki Urquhart concludes in The Scottish Gardener (2005), judgement of Scottish gardens is mostly a matter of ‘point of view’. Though I explore the origins of Scotland’s older gardens in the individual entries in the book, I’m not attempting to write a garden history; but I’d have to admit that the story of Scottish gardening is often fascinating and illuminating. The people who created – and create – Scotland’s gardens are often the movers and shakers of their age. Scotland’s gardens tend to be owned by families whose ancestors fought with or against Robert the Bruce or for or against Bonnie Prince Charlie, or massacred their neighbours or were massacred by them, or were for a time the richest family in Scotland and then lost the lot. My research covered a great deal of garden history and theory of landscape design, romantic back-to-nature treatises and so on, some of which have been illuminating and informative. There are many schools and movements, too many to describe in detail here: arcadian, romantic, picaresque, gardenesque and so on. Behind the florid language most garden design theory comes down to a single basic series of opposing positions which can be summarised as formal versus informal, design versus free-form, straight lines verses curves, order versus freedom, man-made versus natural. Scotland’s first gardening manual, John Reid’s 1683 The Scots Gardener, gives a sense of the requirement for order some garden designers feel: ‘I take a survey of the work and when I find several regular and irregular things done on one side of the house, and nothing correspondent on the other, I mark the very same on the opposite side, and this I continue to do till two irregularities produce one uniformity.’ The need to tame wild, savage, frightening nature into order, boundary and domestication seems to be the driving force here. On the other side are the Rousseau-inspired romantics who see gardens as an extension of nature itself and abhor the formality and artificiality imposed by man on the perfection of nature. More often than not, fashions and tastes swing back and forth. Very often, those styles vilified for a decade or two are back in vogue again within a few years. In Scotland, probably for economic reasons, grand formal gardens were rarely the dominant style, and informal approaches have dominated. Polymath Scot J.C. Loudon (1783–1843) wrote the influential Encyclopaedia of Gardening (1822), advocating a style which he called ‘gardenesque’. This is close to what we now consider ‘woodland gardening’: filling woodland with exotic plants such as rhododendrons. Many Scottish gardens from the last 200 years have fairly closely followed Loudon’s design precepts.

The formal versus informal argument reached its peak in the late Victorian era with the natural/wild faction led by John Ruskin and William Robinson, opposed by formalists such as John Dando Sedding and Reginald Blomfield, who called the Robinson style ‘an absence of design’. Into this pie-throwing contest arrived the voice of reason, Gertrude Jekyll, who calmly entered the

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hitherto male-dominated world of garden design and was asked to take sides.

She immediately saw what a lot of hot air and nonsense was being issued forth and swatted both sides down with a simple, ‘Both are right, both are wrong.’

Jekyll’s solution was to have formality nearer the house with rectangular beds, terraces and straight lines, with wilder, more natural gardening further away which would eventually merge sympathetically into the surrounding countryside. If there is a Scottish gardening style, Jekyll’s aesthetic seems to sum it up rather well.

The evolution of gardening styles over the ages has meant that many great older Scottish gardens have been so altered, sometimes several times over, that little or no trace of the original design remains. Unlike France and Italy, where many great sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gardens can still be enjoyed, Scotland has virtually no pre-eighteenth-century larger gardens intact.

Linlithgow Palace, Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace had extensive, mostly formal gardens in the European style, but none have survived. Drummond Castle in Perthshire and Pitmedden in Aberdeenshire are perhaps the closest we have today on the grand scale, but both are re-creations and interpretations.

Political events had a profound effect on the creation/destruction and survival of gardens. Oliver Cromwell’s troops have a lot to answer for: intent on subduing Scotland, they camped on and laid waste to many significant houses and gardens in the mid seventeenth century, Holyrood Palace being a good example. It was 40–50 years later, in a period of relative stability, that William Bruce became a key figure in the history of Scottish gardening. For the first time, large houses no longer needed to be fortified, so could be sited with their gardening potential and views as a priority rather than defensive considerations.

Bruce’s masterpieces of Balcaskie in 1668–74 (occasionally open under Scotland’s Gardens) and Kinross House in 1685 (recently restored and hopefully accessible in the future) were designed as houses and gardens as a single planned landscape, with a vista from the front door to the Bass Rock and Loch Leven Castle respectively. This evolution of the house set in a wider planned landscape greatly influenced Capability Brown, Robert Adam and others who designed and created the eighteenth-century houses and gardens of Britain.

The 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions caused significant changes in ownership. Many of those who fought for the losing side – Catholic families in particular – forfeited titles, lands and funds. Those who lost out included the Seatons at Winton and the earls of Perth at Stobhall, as well as many clan chiefs such as the MacGregors, McLarens and Stewarts. Some great Scottish dynasties managed to sail though these choppy waters unaffected, while others had sympathetic relatives hold lands till they were allowed to return. Other families who backed the ‘winning team’ were rewarded with favourable land deals and influential positions by the ‘Commissioners of the Forfeited Estates’. Those newly landed and ennobled went on to build and create some of Scotland’s finest eighteenth-century houses and gardens, often designed by William and Robert Adam and their followers.

If the eighteenth century was a golden age of great house design, then the

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Victorian era was more of a mixed bag, ranging from the excellent to the ridiculous: the Gothic revival led to competitive building decoration with turrets, gargoyles, parapets and frippery, and the leader of the Scottish branch of this movement was David Bryce. His best buildings are iconic examples of their age. The Bank of Scotland on Edinburgh’s Mound, the French Gothic turrets of Fettes College in Edinburgh and Balfour Castle in Orkney are all examples of Bryce at his best. Unfortunately, his style caused an infectious rash of imitators; other Scots architects, many trained in Bryce’s practice, were commissioned to ‘improve’ many a fine seventeenth- and eighteenth-century country house.

Robert Lorimer, one of Scotland’s finest architects and landscapers, commented shortly after the end of the Victorian age that ‘so many Scottish houses were ruined by Bryce and others, fifty or sixty years ago’. The Lorimer family’s restoration of Kellie Castle and its gardens was largely inspired by this dislike of the Victorian shells and embellishments. These Victorian ‘Disneyesque’ châteaux, some ugly, some ridiculous, do still tend to dominate a number of Scotland’s significant gardens. Conservationists have listed most of them, so they could not be demolished or returned to their former grandeur, even if there were a will to do so.

The Industrial Revolution saw huge profits made by many of Scotland’s business barons, landowners and entrepreneurs through investments in docks, coalmining, iron, railways, shipbuilding, jute and other industries. With their wealth they purchased or built country houses, and several great Scottish gardens came into being at this time: Wemyss Castle and Hill of Tarvit in Fife and Geilston near Glasgow are some examples. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth and Manderston became the ‘swansong of the great country house’, the First World War saw greenhouse heating turned off, gardens grubbed up to produce food crops and gardeners sent off to fight in the trenches; many never returned. A similar pattern was repeated during the Second World War, with ‘dig for victory’ gardens turned over to growing vegetables. It is astonishing how many gardens survived this double destruction/abandonment and were restored to their former glory. Gradually after the Second World War, it seemed that everyone took to gardening, in suburbs, back gardens and allotments, while at the same time, many of Britain’s ‘great’ private gardens were donated to the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland and were opened to all. In the 1970s gardening became popular on television, with Percy Thrower its first star, and garden centres sprang up on the outskirts of every town. Gardening was now Britain’s most popular pastime.

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So What Makes a Good Garden?

This is, of course, not an easy question to answer. It is, as has already been noted, largely a matter of ‘point of view’. Taste is a fickle thing. And tastes seem to change faster than ever in our media-obsessed age. Gardening styles used to take 50 years to evolve; now they come and go in a decade or less, often with a degree of snobbery involved. I often hear and read that plants such as roses, rhododendrons and even Oudolf-style grasses and prairie planting are no longer ‘in fashion’. Clearly most Scottish gardeners just ignore the style mafia and continue to grow plants which do well and look good. The gardens which consistently impress over long periods of time are usually the ones which are beyond the vagaries of popular taste and the latest styles; these gardens are themselves the ‘trendsetters’. Because the owners of such gardens broke the mould, their creations were not necessarily fêted at the time they were created; often it takes hindsight to appreciate them. Rather than try to relate gardens to current fashions, it is more fruitful to communicate what the essence of each garden is, its strengths and sometimes its weaknesses. Any good example of a gardening style is worthy of recognition. I have resisted any temptation to give gardens a ‘star’ rating, as I think this tends to be divisive. Everyone has his or her own likes and dislikes. There are few gardening styles that I can’t appreciate, though I struggle to find much enthusiasm for dahlia borders, formal rose gardens of hybrid-teas, any garden with a variegated Aucuba, 1970s rockeries, solitary beds of hostas . . . but I’m on the lookout for the best examples of everything, even most of those listed above. Threave has a great dahlia border, Tollcross Park has fantastic hybrid tea roses and Newtonairds Lodge has amazing hosta-dominated plantings. What became apparent as I journeyed the length and breadth of Scotland is just how good Scotland’s gardens are. Very few were poor and almost every one was worth visiting; most gardens, large or small, have something unusual, singular, special or exceptional. Some gardens are probably really worth seeing for only a few weeks a year, others have longer seasons of interest. I have therefore tried to advise on the best time of year to visit. Inevitably, some gardens were in need of more TLC than their often rather elderly owners could manage.

In one or two cases the next generation had taken over, inheriting an ancient gardener, often well beyond retirement age, gamely struggling to maintain control. Gardens with a fair few weeds or overgrown corners can be just as enjoyable as those which are manicured with nail scissors; a bit of wildness never hurt anyone, though I do tend to notice when things are becoming over-shaded by trees. There are some gardens which are, it has to be admitted, out of control,

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overgrown and at, or almost at, the point of no return. I have commented on this from time to time, purely in the hope that something might be done before it is too late. It is useful to assess what gardens and nurseries have to offer in the widest sense: not just to gardeners and garden lovers, but to ‘dragees’ too. This made-up word which I heard being used at an American rhododendron conference, refers to a person who comes along to places or events, because of their spouse/partner/parent’s interest, be it golf, vintage motorbikes, football or garden visiting. Garden and garden centre dragees are often children and many of Scotland’s garden owners have tried hard to cater for their dragee visitors, offering them alternative entertainment such as shopping, cafés and playparks.

For the first edition, my children Jamie and Finn often joined me as I inspected gardens and they assessed the play parks, animals, mazes, fountains and other distractions. For the second edition, they refused point black to visit a single garden. I don’t blame them!

Gardens are fickle things. And so are some garden visitors. Out of season, on a rainy day, when you have a hangover, scratchy children, financial worries, sometimes you won’t be in the mood to appreciate any garden, however good.

Some gardens are like fireworks, a brief explosion of colour, and then nothing much for the rest of the year. Catch these on the right day, and you are in paradise; arrive out of season, and you wonder what the fuss is about. Other gardens are more about setting and views, formal landscaping, buildings, things that don’t change with the seasons so the timing of the visit is less important.

Gardens are also ephemeral. It takes only a few months of neglect before nature starts to reclaim them. Many of Scotland’s best gardens are owned and cared for by elderly gardeners, some of whom have astonishing stamina and fitness for their age. One day they won’t be able to prune and weed. And unless they are lucky enough to be able to pass their garden on to someone who will love it as they did, it may disappear. This pattern has always been the case, and though we may mourn, we know that somewhere not far away, someone else will decide to carve their own piece of paradise out of a new plot of land, a barren moorland, an ancient forest. And on it goes.

On my travels I observed two gardening extremes which I have classified as ‘gardens as stamp collections’ and ‘gardens as theatre’. The ‘stamp-collector’ gardener has lots of rare plants, including all the latest ones on the market. The plants are all well labelled, and sometimes the labels are larger than the plants.

The rarer it is, and often the more insignificant, the better. Such gardens are usually crammed full, with little planning, aesthetic or structure. The owner neither knows nor cares what is fashionable; what matters is that they have the one and only surviving form of this or that rarity. Their garden appeals to likeminded gardeners. Stamp-collector gardeners can often be obsessive, which can diminish the pleasure they derive from their passion, as they are never satisfied.

They can inspire terror in their less knowledgeable visitors who are bombarded with endless Latin and lengthy expositions. Perhaps they have an NCCPG/Plant Heritage national collection of Aucuba, or Pachysandra or some other genus which no one else loves. I’m exaggerating of course, but only slightly; most of us

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know someone who gardens like this. The other extreme is the ‘garden as theatre’ style. Nikolaus Pevsner wrote in 1944 that gardens are ‘Britain’s greatest contribution to the visual arts’. Perhaps a concept which the vast majority of gardeners would run a mile from. There is no doubt that many gardens are extremely theatrical, where design and bold statements are key to major structural and planting decisions. Such gardens are often deliberately ‘fashionable’, often built at great expense, planned and sometimes planted by a garden designer and/or landscaper. You may find exotic lighting, fountains and follies, colour co-ordinated planting schemes in blue or inevitably white, minimalism, pleached trees, topiary. Plants are chosen for their form and colour and are never labelled, as labels are ugly. Such gardens are often divided into rooms with hedges and each path or allée has an object at the end: a building, statue, seat or focus planting. Design-obsessed gardeners often find it equally hard to take pleasure from their gardens, as there is always some carefully planned plant partnership or effect which did not work out or failed to wow the last people to see it. Don’t get me wrong; there is definitely a place for theatrical gardens. Sir Roy Strong’s garden at the Laskett in Herefordshire is a fine example, and as Strong describes himself as ‘a frustrated stage designer’, I don’t think he would mind being assigned to the ‘gardens as theatre’ movement. Thankfully, few gardens are as clear-cut as either of the above extremes. In my opinion, what makes a really good garden is a balance between careful and individual plant selection and excellent form and structure. There is nothing better than stumbling across a garden with exquisite design touches and plant combinations which you have seldom or never seen before. Most great gardens are ‘great’ because they have both elements and because they do one or two things really well: large or small, they have that certain magic which comes from a perfect vista or where the form, structure and colour combination just take your breath away; what Gertrude Jeykll called creating ‘garden pictures’. Scotland is full of superb ‘garden pictures’. Sadly not every day, or even every year: rhododendrons and magnolias can be frosted overnight in spring, leaving mushy grey destruction while in summer wet weather may be great for hydrangeas but many roses and perennials just go mouldy. There is often an element of luck to being at the right place at the right time. This is part of the pleasure of visiting gardens; unlike a historic house, a garden will always be different, however many times you visit. Even the greatest gardens can be miserable in wind and rain; though I did visit plenty of them in downpours in the summers of 2007, 2008 and 2012 and still managed to enjoy them. The gardens which most excite me are not always the obvious ones; those untouchable classics that everyone has heard of.

Their fame precedes them, and at times the weight of expectation just cannot deliver that wow factor that you were perhaps expecting. In contrast, I walked into some of the gardens in this book knowing little or nothing about them and came away delighted. I realise that by waxing lyrical about them, I’m raising your expectations, but I hope that when you discover them, you’ll be purring with pleasure as I was. Many private gardens are a particular pleasure to visit because you can meet and be guided by the owners and creators. Their enthu-

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siasm makes the visit doubly interesting and informative. You can’t do that at museum gardens whose creators are long dead and which are now steered by committee. Peter King, author/editor of The Good Gardens Guide, wrote a fine essay on the difficulties of judging gardens, and much of what he says is very pertinent: ‘I would . . . suggest that all good gardens have “style”: a style individually formulated by its creator, or successive creators, and given a shape under his or her direction. It is a process which in other people’s eyes may succeed or fail, but never mind; if they have consulted the genius of the place, then the style they aim for will show through.’ Author of The Authentic Garden, American Claire E. Sawyers, confirms the importance of a sense of place: ‘to discover and preserve what is special about your site, its genius loci. This means working with what you’ve been given, not struggling against it’. She goes on to explain how good gardens should ‘involve the visitor’ and decries what she calls ‘garden porn’ or gardens designed to shock or provoke.

Many gardeners struggle to comprehend how avant garde garden design and landscape architecture can be deemed gardening at all when plants are obviously such a secondary consideration and sometimes barely feature at all. This was brought home to me at the festival of garden design a few years ago at Westonbirt in Gloucestershire which featured plots which were attention-grabbing, often provocative, but were really nothing more than gallery installations which happened to have been created outside. I failed to see much evidence of gardening at all. Some strands of current garden design raise a furious response.

Author and garden designer Noel Kingsbury expresses his frustration at what he views are contemporary gardening trends: ‘I think I speak for a lot of people who are fed up with modernism and minimalism. We want ornamentation, detail, complexity, and BEAUTY!’ (writing in response to the ThinkinGardens website). This brings home the polarised views which can exist when trying to evaluate good gardens and gardening. I think I’m a gardening pluralist and hope that I’m receptive to all styles and eras of gardening, and I’m often very stimulated by daring and contemporary garden design. In this book I am advocating a very broad-minded view of what gardening can be. In Scotland we have been lucky enough to have two iconic and ground-breaking twentieth-century garden creators in the late Ian Hamilton Finlay and Charles Jencks – both artists/architects who have pushed the boundaries of what gardens and gardening might be capable of into hitherto largely uncharted territory. Their creations are considered amongst the world’s most important gardens of the last 100 years.

Whether these two pathfinders turn out to be the leaders of the future direction of gardening or an interesting sideshow, only time will tell. But we should be proud that they are part of Scotland’s amazing gardening heritage.

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Scottish Gardening ‘Style’ and What Makes a ‘Scottish Garden’ I don’t think there is a very strong argument for the existence of a school or style of Scottish gardening as such, but Scottish history, geography, geology and climate have all contributed to moulding the gardens we have. The one factor which makes Scottish gardens unique is the striking landscape in which many of them are set. Scottish gardens are seldom flat, and many have stunning coastal or mountain backdrops or ‘borrowed’ landscapes. Garden historian Christopher Dingwall draws attention to this in (so far unpublished) essays under the banner, ‘Landscaping of Scotland’: ‘While their English counterparts were struggling to create picturesque and sublime landscapes with the help of artificial rocks and cascades, many Scots gardeners and landowners simply took advantage of the natural features to be found in the landscape which surrounded them.’ The natural settings of Culzean, Inverewe, Arduaine, Floors Castle and many other Scottish gardens are as fine as anywhere in the world. In the following pages I attempt to summarise some of the other key ingredients, features and motifs which have come to define what makes a Scottish garden.

Trees We take it for granted these days that Scotland is well covered with trees, but this was far from the case 500 years ago. The Middle Ages saw most of Scotland deforested for firewood and building, with virtually no replanting. Monarchs and their governments passed legislation to protect trees and encourage reforestation, but this was not enforced. Virtually all the native forest disappeared and contemporary travellers commented on the desolate treeless landscape. The reversal of fortune began in the seventeenth century, when a new law was passed, which this time was successful in forcing landowners and tenants to plant trees.

John Evelyn, author of one of the first books on forestry, published in 1678, inspired his friend the earl of Tweeddale to plant trees on a large scale at his estates at Yester, near Haddington. Architect William Bruce used trees in his designs for Hopetoun House and Kinross House in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and Daniel Defoe commented on the scale of treeplanting he encountered on his grand tour of Scotland between 1724 and 1727.

By now it was fashionable for great houses to have wooded parkland, and competitiveness between owners led to planting on an ever larger scale. The dukes of Argyll and Atholl were the pioneers of grand-scale planting and one

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extraordinary incident in 1685 saw the Murrays celebrate their victory over the Campbells by the looting of 34,000 trees, ripped up from Inveraray Castle and replanted at Blair Atholl over 100 miles away. The eighteenth century was the age of parkland landscaping and the heyday of ‘Capability’ Brown and Humphry Repton. By then, tree-planting and the creation of woods and parkland on the grand scale was common all over the UK. The dukes of Atholl planted trees on a hitherto unmatched scale; it has been calculated that the second, third and fourth dukes planted over 21 million trees on 15,000 acres of ground. Other estates with substantial tree-planting during this period include Drumlanrig, Monymusk, Duff House, Tyninghame, Drummond Castle, Inveraray and Glamis. By 1828 Sir Henry Steuart was able to describe Scotland as a ‘Planting Nation’ or to speak with more correctness, a ‘Nation of Planters’.

Many of these eighteenth- and nineteenth-century woodlands still exist, with particularly fine beech, oaks, lime, sycamore and larch. The elms, sadly, have mostly gone due to Dutch Elm disease, though Aberdeenshire has managed to hold onto a good many, at least till recently. A new organisation, The National Tree Collections of Scotland (www.ntcs.org.uk) was founded in 2011. Starting with seven sites with several more added, the organisation’s website explains the rationale: Scotland has some of the world’s finest tree collections. Their diversity reflects the role many individual landowners have played over the centuries, collecting and planting specimen trees from around the globe.

The best of Scotland’s specimen tree collections have been brought together as the National Tree Collections of Scotland, to increase public awareness of and access to these collections, and to help protect this aspect of our national heritage for future generations . . . In a single, multi-site national arboretum . . . overseen by . . . experts drawn from Forestry Commission Scotland, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the Royal Scottish Forestry Society and the National Trust for Scotland.

Plant hunters in North America: conifers and the pinetum It was not surprising that the already enthusiastic tree-planting Scottish landowning classes fell over themselves to grow the latest conifer introductions from North America brought back by Scottish plant hunters such as Archibald Menzies, David Douglas, William Murray and William Drummond (Araucaria, the monkey puzzle, Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, Noble fir, Grand fir, Western red cedar, Lawson’s cypress etc). These fast-growing conifers changed the Scottish landscape for good. Several Scottish landowners clubbed together in 1849 to finance expeditions to bring back further seed from the Americas. The 1854 and subsequent introductions of giant redwoods from California account for the number of these huge trees found all over Scotland from Castle Kennedy and Benmore in the south and west to the Tay valley in the east. Pinetums were

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established to show off these collections of giants on a grand scale at gardens in Perthshire and Angus such as Glamis, Scone Palace, Blair Castle, the Hermitage and Murthly Castle as well as at Balmoral on Deeside, Ardkinglas in Argyll and Dawyck in the Borders. Many of Scotland’s now tallest trees were planted at this time and form the present-day backdrop to many of the finest gardens and plant collections.

Plant hunters in Asia and the Scottish woodland gardens The period from the 1840s onwards saw plant hunters turn towards the east, particularly to China and the Himalayas, now accessible to outsiders for the first time. Scotsman Robert Fortune arrived in China as a plant collector in 1843, returning in 1851 when he famously broke the Chinese monopoly on tea by taking thousands of Camellia plants to India. Joseph Hooker was funded through his father at Glasgow Botanic Garden to explore Sikkim and other parts of northern India in the 1850s. He brought back large quantities of seed, particularly rhododendrons, and the seedlings raised were planted in many Scottish gardens such as Castle Kennedy, Kilmory and Stonefield, where some of them can still be seen. Equally significant were the hundreds of hybrids bred from the newly introduced rhododendron species which, planted with their parents, began to form part of the William Robinson-inspired woodland gardens from the late Victorian era onwards. George Forrest, trained at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh was sent on his first collecting foray to China in 1904, the first of seven collecting expeditions to Yunnan, on which he amassed over 31,000 herbarium specimens and introduced several hundred significant garden plants via copious quantities of seed. Not only numerous rhododendrons were introduced, but also Primula, Meconopsis, Magnolia, Pieris, maples, Sorbus, Berberis and other garden plants which we now take for granted. Forest’s last expedition between 1930 and 1932 had several Scottish sponsors, including K. McDougal from Logan, J. Horlick from Gigha, D. MacEwen from Corsock, E.H.M. Cox from Glendoick, the Rentons from Branklyn, F. Balfour from Dawyck and J. Stirling Maxwell from Pollok – a veritable roll-call of great Scottish rhododendron gardens. These sponsors received more seed than they could grow themselves, so in turn they sent some of it to their friends and relatives: to the MacKenzies at Inverewe, the Duchess of Montrose at Brodick, the Campbells at Crarae, Inveraray and Arduaine, to the Christies at Blackhills and Sir John Noble at Ardkinglas. In this way almost all of the great Scottish woodland gardens had access to wild-origin material, and most of them had acres of space to plant the resultant seedlings in. There were numerous other important collectors who enriched Scottish gardens: Ernest Wilson, Reginald Farrer and Euan (E.H.M.) Cox, Frank Kingdon Ward, Joseph Rock and Frank Ludlow and George Sherriff all contributed to the steady stream of new introductions of rhododendron and other plant species from all over the China-Himalayan region. Scot George Sherriff and his wife Betty planted their fine garden at

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Ascreavie and shared wild collected seeds with many Scottish gardeners, particularly those keen on alpines such as the Rentons at Branklyn, nurserymen Jack Drake and Alec Duguid, Bobby Masterton at Cluny, the Knox Findlays at Keillour and Euan Cox at Glendoick. Of all the plants brought back, none had more impact on Scotland’s landscape than the hundreds of species of rhododendron, which in many ways became the defining plant of Scottish gardens.

My family, the Coxes, founded the Glendoick nursery in 1953, which ever since has been the main source of rhododendrons for Scottish gardens. Plant hunters returned to the China-Himalayan region in the 1980s and many important new plants have been introduced to Scottish gardens in the years since. Vita Sackville-West may have despised rhododendrons: ‘they are like fat stockbrokers who we do not want to dinner’, but Scotland was not Sissinghurst and clearly few Scots agreed with her. The list of significant rhododendron-dominated Scottish woodland gardens is long. Some of the best include Blackhills, Arduaine, Crarae, Benmore, Glenarn, Inverewe, Glendoick and Corsock. In recent years there have been a significant number of contemporary Scottish plant hunters, from the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, the Scottish Rock Garden Club as well as owners of nurseries such as Ron McBeath, the Rankins from Kevock, Ian Christie, Michael Wickenden, Jens Nielsen, myself and my father Peter Cox with Peter Hutchison, all of whom have scoured the globe for new plants, many of which are proving to be fine garden subjects.

Alpines and rock gardening The same plant hunters who brought back so many rhododendrons also introduced quantities of alpine plants from high mountain areas of Asia. Scotland’s own mountains and cliffs contain a fine range of alpine plants. Some of these are suitable as garden plants; others, such as Loiseleuria procumbens, are challenging to cultivate at low altitudes. Alpines from other countries are often more adaptable to lowland Scotland, where our cool summers suit their needs.

The nineteenth- and twentieth-century collectors already mentioned were also responsible for the introduction of huge numbers of alpine plants from Asia to add to those coming in from Greece, Turkey, South Africa and South America.

Plant hunter and writer Reginald Farrer’s pioneering The English Rock Garden, published just before the First World War, inspired several significant Scottish rock gardens. Some of the many notable collectors of alpine plants assembled in the period either side of the Second World War included the Sherriffs at Ascreavie, the Knox Findlays at Keillour, the Rentons at Branklyn, Jack Drake at Inshriach, Alec Duiguid at Edrom, Bobby Masterton at Cluny and the LeithHays at Leith Hall. Their gardens boasted dwarf rhododendrons, primulas, meconopsis, lilies, Nomocharis, saxifrage, Daphne and many other genera. The largest rock garden, at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh was constructed in 1908 and rebuilt in 1914 after Farrer criticised it for its artificiality. The growing popularity of alpine plants lead to the formation of the Scottish Rock Garden

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Club in 1933. Scotland has long boasted a significant number of excellent alpine specialist nurseries including Edrom Nurseries, Jack Drake/Inshriach, Ian Christie, Kevock Garden Plants, Lamberton (now closed) and Ardfearn.

Walled gardens What is it that makes walled gardens so fascinating and irresistible? Perhaps it’s the mystery of what lies behind those high walls . . . if only we can find the way in. Or perhaps it’s the shelter and ‘apartness’ to be found inside, away from noise of traffic, wind, other people . . . An enormous number of Scotland’s finest gardens are to be found within high walls. Enclosed gardens are described by Sir Robert Lorimer as ‘a sort of sanctuary’, a ‘chamber roofed by heaven’. They find their origins in castle gardens – Edzell for example – and monastery gardens enclosed by a courtyard or cloisters. It does not take much imagination to work out why walled gardens are so important to Scotland. The simple answer is the climate. We tend to forget these days just how cold winters were in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Without the protection of walls, often heated by coal fires and boilers, it would not have been possible to grow such a wide range of ornamental and food plants. Walled gardens were built primarily to allow great houses to have a high degree of self-sufficiency. Great skills in cultivation were developed and important breakthroughs in plant breeding were made in them. They provide protection from wind, particularly important for seaside gardens such as those at Inverewe and Dunbeath. The walls and gates keep out rabbits and deer and undoubtedly also prevented appropriation of the produce by locals. The microclimates provided by the walls allowed trained fruit to be grown successfully and the south-facing wall was usually the site of one or more lean-to greenhouses or conservatories, used to protect tender plants, raise exotic fruit and flowers and to force plants into bloom for the house in winter and early spring. Many of Scotland’s walled gardens were built on a prodigious scale. Some of the largest I found on my travels were Hopetoun (over 20 acres), Brechin Castle (13 acres), Blair Castle Hercules Garden (9 acres), Amisfield (7 acres) and Wemyss Castle (6 acres). In contrast, some of the finest walled gardens are small: Elizabeth MacGregor’s at Ellenbank and Ann Fraser’s at Shepherd House are bijou perfection. Some, like Mertoun and Knockdolian, are built on top of a hill, while others such as Blairquhan have a hollow in the middle, sloping up at both ends, which allows for spectacular vistas. Cambo’s walled garden has a burn running through it, while Hercules’ garden at Blair Castle boasts large ponds. Most are square or rectangular; exceptions include Netherbyres (elliptical), Carolside (oval), Kinlochlaich House (hexagonal), Inverewe (curved) and Brechin (irregular). Several, such as Wemyss and Novar, are double or even triple gardens. Many walled gardens have only three walls, with the lowest point left open to allow frost to drain out. Glendoick’s is an example of this. Most Scottish walled gardens are sited some distance from the house they belong to, and several present-day owners have told me how much

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they regret this, as they can’t just nip out to get some herbs or do a bit of weeding. The separation of house and garden was something that particularly aggrieved Sir Walter Scott, quoted in the Quarterly Review, vol. 37: ‘The garden . . . [is] by a strange and sweeping sentence of exile . . . sequestered in some distant corner where it may be best concealed from the eye to which it has been rendered a nuisance, the modern garden resembles nothing so much as a convict in his gaol apparel, banished, by his every appearance from all decent society.’

So why were walled gardens constructed far from the house? There are several theories. The use of ‘night soil’ (human waste) to grow vegetables and fruit made some kitchen gardens smell unpleasant. Gardeners were often housed in cottages and bothies in the garden walls and it was considered desirable to have labourers’ accommodation some distance from the house. And the walled garden’s cutting and flower beds were thought ideally to be ‘a short stroll distant’, a suitable destination for the ladies to take a turn to after lunch. Walter Scott’s own three-part walled garden at Abbotsford was built to demonstrate how he thought it should be done, and there are many fine examples of walled gardens right next to the dwelling they belong to, often with the house or castle forming one of the walls or boundaries. Some of the best examples include Earlshall Castle and Kellie in Fife (both Lorimer designs), Pitmuies, Crathes and Cawdor. At Cally, Netherbyres, Tyninghame and Carnell, the present owners have built new homes or extended old bothies and apple stores so they can live in or alongside their walled gardens. Most walled gardens suffered greatly during both world wars, when most of the ornamentals were ripped up and replaced with food crops as part of ‘dig for victory’. Needless to say, many gardeners never returned home; the First World War saw many gardens lose all their staff in the futility of the Western Front. Post-1945, many gardens were returned to their former glory, but others were abandoned, grassed over, used for market gardens or, perhaps worst of all, used for growing Christmas trees. Thankfully, walled gardens seem to be enjoying a renaissance and many old gardens are finding new uses. Some of the best recent restorations include Drum’s rose garden on Deeside, Dunbeath’s complex series of garden rooms and the garden architecture at Wormistoun in Fife. Floors Castle’s contains a garden centre as well as excellent herbaceous borders, fruit and vegetables. Woodside Walled Garden, Smeaton and Quercus Garden Plants use walled gardens as nurseries while Redhall in Edinburgh is used to help people recovering from mental illness. There are few things more depressing than abandoned walled gardens. There is almost always some potential good use for any unloved walled garden and I’m tempted to propose that the Scottish Government should consider defining a new crime of ‘owning a walled garden without due stewardship’. Recent walled garden restorations include Amisfield (Haddington) and Shambellie (Dumfries), Gordon Castle and, just beginning, Penicuik House. I can’t help thinking that some of the other abandoned ones could and should be used for allotments (there is usually demand for these). The buildings in and around walled gardens are equally varied and often fascinating: greenhouses in all shapes and sizes, often with the remains of their elaborate heating systems, pavilions, summerhouses, doocots,

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apple stores (the one at Earlshall has Lorimer stone monkeys on top), and the pièce de résistance, the Pineapple at Dunmore.

Environmental or land art In the last 30 years, Scotland has become what is probably the world’s leading centre of land or environmental art. Some may argue that this has little to do with gardening, but in truth, the idea of shaping lakes, creating buildings and placing sculpture and inscriptions in the landscape goes back millennia and can be found across continents: Japanese and Chinese mountain and temple gardens, ancient British sites such as the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney and Callanish in Lewis, the construction of ‘eye-catchers’ in classical and renaissance Italian gardens and the sculpting of the landscape by William Kent and Capability Brown in England. Ian Hamilton Finlay’s garden at Little Sparta (see p. 446) and the Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack (see p. 376) are the two best-known modern-day Scottish examples. The largest concentration of sites is in south-west Scotland, from Lanarkshire to Dumfries and Galloway. At Cairnsmore nature reserve near Gatehouse of Fleet are a series of five sculptures

by Matt Baker paired with poems by Mary Smith. Artist Andy Goldsworthy has built cairns and other sculptures in sites around Scotland, the best known of which are the Striding Arches at Cairnhead (see p. 355). Glenkiln Estate (see p.

381) is another wild landscape around a reservoir in the Dumfries hills, with sculptures by Epstein, Moore and others. Edinburgh boasts two Charles Jencks landforms at the Gallery of Modern Art (see p. 443) and Jupiter Artland (see p.

439). Other Jencks projects include open cast mines or quarries in Fife (Scottish World Project, see p. 238) and Crawick (see p. 364) in Dumfries, where spoil has been turned into artificial mounds. The Gretna Landmark by the Scottish border is a Jencks–Cecil Balmond sculpture collaboration. Charles Jencks describes his art as ‘The Universe in the Landscape’.

Scottish plant breeding Scotland has a long history of significant plant breeding which probably dates back to the selection of apple varieties and other fruit in monastic gardens in the Middle Ages. Roses were bred by Dickson and Brown in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and James Cocker and Sons in the twentieth. Despite their North American origins, the world centre of Penstemon breeding from 1870 till 1968 was at the firm of John Forbes of Hawick in the Borders, while rhododendrons were hybridised by Cunningham’s nursery in Victorian times. A huge range of dwarf rhododendrons and evergreen azaleas (named after birds and mammals) was bred by my family at Glendoick from 1960 onwards. Breeders of alpine plants include James Grieve (of apple fame), William Buchanan, Jack Drake and more recently Ian Christie and Ian MacNaughton. The Scottish

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Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie is world-renowned for the breeding and selection of many varieties of raspberry and blackcurrant, as well as the tayberry.

An important contemporary player is Orkney farmer Alan Bremner, who has been breeding hardy geraniums for the last 20 years. My 2012 book Fruit and Vegetables for Scotland covers Scotland’s fruit and vegetable breeders in some detail, including potato pioneers such as Archibald Findlay from Auchtermuchty.

Scottish wild flowers and plants Due to Britain’s island geography and intense glaciation during the last Ice Age, Scotland has a relatively impoverished native flora and very few endemic plants (those which are found only in Scotland). Scotland’s climate during the last ice age is thought to have been comparable to that of Greenland today, with only true arctic vegetation surviving. As the climate warmed up again, trees and conifers such as birch and juniper were able to move north and Arctic plants such as Saxifraga oppositifolia, Gentiana nivalis and Loiseleuria procumbens became confined to mountain tops such as Ben Lawers and the peaks of the Angus glens, where sharp-eyed walkers can still enjoy them. Scotland does have a fine range of wild flowers, and several spectacular plants, not all of them native, dominate the landscape at certain times of year. While some such as gorse, broom and heather are indigenous to Scottish, many now wild plants such as Rhododendron ponticum were introduced from elsewhere. Scotland’s relatively short list of native trees includes Scots pine, yew, rowan, willow, alder, hazel and oak. The Romans probably introduced beech and chestnut to the UK, while the last three centuries have seen the introduction of many other trees now very much part of the landscape. Snowdrops (Galanthus) are certainly one of Scotland’s most conspicuous wildflowers, very much at home in Scotland, multiplying happily without any human intervention, and yet most authorities agree that they are not British natives. Late February and early March is the peak of snowdrop flowering (see p. 499 for the pick of snowdrop gardens). As winter turns to spring, primroses (Primula vulgaris) start to flower all over Scotland in March, April and May, with their pale yellow flowers, historically associated with Easter. Some of the best displays I have seen lie along the A816 from Oban to Lochgilphead and on Skye. May brings on one the finest wildflower sights in Scotland when the bluebell woods come into flower. The third week of May is usually the peak, but an early spring can make them earlier and they run into June in the far north. There are great examples all over Scotland. Some of the best include Castramon Wood, near Gatehouse of Fleet, Yellowcraig Wood near Stirling, Glen Nant, Argyll, Craigvinean Forest near Dunkeld and Darroch Wood, Blairgowrie, as well as many of the oak woods on Loch Lomondside.

Wild garlic (Allium ursinum), pungent as you walk through it, produces its white flowers at the same time as the bluebells and they often grow together. The woods around Jura House contain what may be Scotland’s most impressive wild

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garlic carpets. The warming of the climate over recent years means that gorse (Ulex europaeus) can open some of its bright yellow flowers almost all winter, but the peak is in spring, usually in mid May, when dry hillsides turn bright yellow.

Some of the best places to see it include along the A90 from the Forth Bridge to Perth, along the East Lothian coast, in parts of Dumfries and Galloway and around Oban in Argyll. Broom joins in a little later in May. Rhododendron ponticum flowers from late May to late June and occurs in quantity where rainfall is highest, on the west side of the country. Some of the finest displays include those in Mull, around Loch Fyne, Loch Awe and further north in Wester Ross around Kishorn. It was introduced from Spain and Portugal in the eighteenth century and was widely planted for shelter and game cover. In high rainfall areas (so not generally in eastern Scotland) it is able to seed and spread with suckers to form a dense carpet where few other plants can thrive. Foresters curse it and the Scottish Executive are in the process of banning its planting, a bit late in the day, as the plant is seldom grown commercially anymore. It is important to stress that of all the 900 species of rhododendron and azalea, R. ponticum is normally the only one to be invasive in this way. The others stay where they are put. Fossil records indicate that R. ponticum grew in Britain before the last Ice Age. Heather is perhaps Scotland’s most famous wild flower, the finest moorlands tend to be on the drier east coast slopes of the Angus glens and Grampians. These carpets of purple in late summer are ling – Calluna vulgaris – often accompanied by delicious blaeberries (Vaccinium myrtillus). The other wild heather species, Erica cinerea and E. tetralix, are found on cliffs and boggy ground respectively. Many of the richest wildflower habitats in Scotland are coastal. Clifftops are often particularly rich, and reserves around the coast, famous for their seabirds, are also rich in a wide range of wildflowers. St Abb’s Head near Berwick and Handa Island in Sutherland are two good examples, as is the limestone-dominated island of Lismore north of Oban. Machair is a particular west-coast habitat where a lime-rich sand is covered with grass, sometimes fertilised with seaweed for grazing. This sharp-draining sand is a perfect habitat for many wild flowers including vetch, trefoil and ox-eye daisy, providing a spectacular summer display. Calgary Bay on Mull, and the islands of Coll, Tiree and Islay, as well as parts of the peninsula of Ardnamurchan, have good examples of machair.

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The ‘Existential Gardener’: What Makes a Gardener Garden?

What makes people devote so much hard work and money to the cause of a beautiful garden? Many gardeners tend their acres well into old age; and when I enquire if there is anyone else to take on the burden, the answer is often ‘no’.

Their children have perhaps long seen the absurdity of their parents’ gardening obsessions and determined not to be caught in the same trap. In many cases, the garden will no longer exist after they have gone. The motivation for gardening often seems to me to be the process or task itself, which brings to mind Albert Camus’ definition of existentialism in Le Mythe de Sisyphe (‘The Myth of Sisyphus’) in which he describes Sisyphus’ endless task of pushing a heavy rock up a hill only to see it roll back down again as soon as he nears the top. ‘The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart.’ And Camus considers that this may indeed be a form of ‘true happiness’. Many people love to work in the outdoors, they love the contact with the soil, the pleasure of looking out onto a beautiful garden. But even with all these other motivations, I’m convinced there is an existential side, for almost all gardeners. Building a house or restoring a car, or walking from Land’s End to John o’ Groats are long and laborious tasks. But all these have a beginning and end, and then you can relax. Gardening is not like this: as all gardeners know, as soon as you have ‘finished’, your plants grow and crowd one another, pests and diseases strike, greenfly, blackspot, mildew, rain, storms, drought, you mow the grass, the grass gets longer again, weeds grow where you’ve just weeded . . . and gardeners just push that stone up that hill, over and over again. The best we can do is have the occasional rest, while admirers come to praise the shape of our rock, the pose in which we push it and the perfectly balanced route or rut we have worn down the hillside. It is simultaneously glorious and futile.

When does the gardening bug strike? It often appears to relate to ‘nurture’.

Caring for something to make it grow. Usually but not always, a hitherto mild affection for the garden increases when children reach a certain stage. For some, it might be when they go off to primary school, and don’t need constant attention. For others it might be when they pack off their offspring to boarding school, university or work, leaving a hole in a parent’s life for something else which needs to be nurtured. This time they can choose something which does not answer back, grow distant or turn into a teenager. Gardeners forgive plants which do not perform, assuming that either they did something wrong or the climate and soil are to blame. It’s not the same trauma we go through wondering if we are doing a good job as parents. When children stop draining our income

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and start to earn some of their own . . . we decide to spend some of the money that this frees up on plants and gardening.

Is it possible to say what makes a great gardener? Is this really not the same question that I’ve just been trying to answer when evaluating a good garden? I’m not sure that it is. Most great gardeners are enlightened dictators with huge amounts of energy and a single-minded vision, often ignoring advice from others. Sometimes they fail; the clever ones take stock, remove the failures and move on. It is the daring, risk-taking attitude and the vision to see what something will look like in years to come that can make a great gardener. This is why I am wary of gardening by committee. When committees run gardens, everyone has a say. ‘You can’t do this, that tree was planted by the earl of somewhere . . . you can’t do that, we have always had rose beds there . . .’ This resulting lack of decisiveness all too often causes committee-run gardens to fall into a gradual but terminal decline through lack of innovation. No one is prepared to get out the chainsaw and make the bold decisions. You can’t pickle a garden in vinegar and preserve it; a garden is a process not an object, a dynamic entity, the ultimate ‘time-based art’ which can grow and deteriorate at equal speed. All good gardens thrive on evolution and change. A great expert on this subject, and one of Britain’s greatest ever gardeners, Graham Stewart Thomas, wrote at length about this issue; he found it reared its head again and again in his work as gardens director of the (English) National Trust: ‘We have learnt that committees are unsatisfactory for running gardens; all great gardens have been made by an individual or a succession of individuals. The mere fact that a committee is formed so that there shall be majority agreement, carries with it obvious dangers.’ (Graham Stewart Thomas, Gardens of the National Trust) Every great garden evolves, decade on decade; momentous decisions have to be made from time to time: to cut down woods or overgrown avenues of trees, to knock down walls, to get rid of tired old sections, to fill in or dig ponds, to give up growing roses. Great gardeners take risks. Committees are risk-averse. It can’t be helped. Which brings us on to the issue of garden conservation.

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The Conservation and Preservation of Scotland’s Gardens Some of Scotland’s gardens and planned landscapes have been tended by members of the same family for hundreds of years. Generations have kept adding, changing, reviving and improving them. But most great gardens are at risk of disappearing when their creator moves on. The National Trust for Scotland has conserved and preserved many great gardens of course, but it cannot save them all. Other gardens are cut adrift from their funders: Dundee, St Andrews and Cruickshank botanic gardens are no longer required by their universities for research or teaching so their lack of financial security is an ongoing concern. When significant gardens are sold, it is pure chance whether the new owners will have the interest or means to maintain or improve a garden, so more often than not they slip quietly off the radar and disappear. A woodland garden may be able to fend for itself for a few years, but a formal or walled garden is almost defenceless: nature will reclaim these in a matter of months.

However, even after years of neglect, old gardens can be brought back to life when there is a will, as many were after the world wars. Scotland’s gardening history is intrinsically bound up with land ownership and social class. Gardens for pleasure rather than for growing food were until relatively recently almost entirely the preserve of the aristocracy and landowning classes. Such pleasure gardens were large-scale, high-maintenance and labour intensive. Most of Scotland’s major landowners have or had significant gardens. Scotland is a country where the concentration of ownership of land in so few hands has long been controversial. Andy Wightman’s illuminating book Who Owns Scotland? details the feudal background to Scotland’s land tenure and also illustrates how the landed families have managed to hang onto their lands through a combination of strategic marriages and complex, often secretive financial arrangements. Much of Scotland’s land is held by around 1,500 estates, varying in size from 5,000 to 260,000 acres. Many have been held by families for generations, while the ownership of some estates is hidden behind trusts which take a bit of work to unravel. One or two asked me not to reveal the name of the garden/estate owners, which I have respected with some reluctance. As I was, however, able to find out who owned all of them with a quick Google search, such secrecy seemed out of date and pointless. Indeed, it has persuaded me that transparency of land ownership in Scotland should be made a legal requirement on public record and freely available on the internet, as it is in almost all other European countries. It is impossible to research a book such as this without noticing Scotland’s powerhouse landowning dynasties: the dukes of Atholl,

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Argyll, Sutherland, Buccleuch and the marquises of Bute are some of the most significant examples. These estates alone account for almost 600,000 acres of Scotland (whose total land area is 19 million acres) and the wealth these families have accumulated has allowed them to garden on a huge scale. By comparison, the National Trust for Scotland owns 175,000 acres (1995). These landed families (mostly owned via trusts) still maintain some of Scotland’s finest castles, gardens and landscapes on a significant and impressive scale. It must be borne in mind that the stewardship of many of the great gardens of Scotland for generation after generation is carried on for motives which are seldom for financial gain, and we should acknowledge the efforts and foresight of some of Scotland’s major landowners. There are, however, persuasive arguments for further land reform in Scotland as there are many legal and feudal anachronisms which have no place in a democracy in the twenty-first century. It is heartening to watch the progress of recent community buyouts of Eigg, Gigha and Assynt, all of which suffered previously under the ownership of sometimes absent, careless, incompetent or bankrupt owners. Some of Scotland’s best gardens are owned and looked after by people who inherited or bought them, often unaware what they were letting themselves in for. I have met many such slightly shell-shocked owners embarking on a steep learning curve, particularly those who had sometimes unwittingly managed to ‘marry’ a great garden when they walked up the aisle.

Some rise to the challenge while others don’t, usually due to financial constraints or lack of interest. Many once great Scottish gardens have been lost in this way or are in terminal decline or no longer open to the public. It has been relatively easy to assess the loss of gardens by comparing the garden entries in this book with an earlier guide, Scotland’s Gardens, edited by Allan Little and published in 1981. As an example, over 60 per cent of the gardens listed in the South-East Scotland section of that book are not in this one 30+ years later. I wonder what remains of Addistoun, Bridgelands, Chiefswood, Cleuchhead, Craling Hall, Eden House, Elvingston, Glenburn House, Hawthornden Castle, The Holmes, Houndwood House . . . I’m sure that some of these are still good gardens, no longer open or accessible by the public. Some might be in such a condition that they could be rescued and brought back to life, should a new owner wish to do so. But many will have gone for good. In assessing the extent of Scotland’s garden heritage we now have a valuable resource available to us in Historic Scotland’s ‘Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes’. This is a detailed survey, now available at www.historic-scotland.gov.uk. This survey may lead to legislation for greater statutory protection of listed landscapes from inappropriate development, but there seems little chance that significant funds will be made available to preserve the gardens themselves. Gardens are not frozen in time but evolve constantly. There is a tendency to assume that garden restoration is a good idea, but this is a complex and often contentious issue. Who decides whether an original garden design is really worth re-creating? There are sometimes good reasons that gardens have disappeared, whether for financial or aesthetic considerations. If we decide to restore a garden, then how do we decide to which period? A historic garden is a process, not a snapshot, and this often

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presents interesting challenges. Falkland Palace is a particularly knotty example.

This NTS Fife property is a Victorian restoration of a sixteenth-century palace which had been abandoned for almost 200 years and had no remaining gardens.

Falkland Palace now has a mixture of Victorian-style shrubbery, a Percy Cane post-war design and some National Trust committee gardening. Many agree this garden is not very satisfactory, but it is almost impossible to reach a consensus on what type of garden should be restored or created here. Personally, I think the Cane design should go, but many others feel equally strongly that it should be preserved. I leave the last word on this subject to one Britain’s most erudite gardeners, Sir Roy Strong, who I heard speak in 2008 on the subject of garden conservation and his own garden at The Lasket, ending his talk with a rallying cry: ‘My mandate is: if it is boring, old fashioned, overgrown, demolish it, rip it out, start again. Because that is what gardening is about . . . it is about starting again and it is about change and it is about embracing change. It is not about making static shrines.’

The National Trust for Scotland The National Trust and National Trust for Scotland have saved many of Britain’s greatest gardens from certain decline and probable destruction. But donating a garden in this way is not without its trials, particularly if you give it away while you are still alive, sentient and living next door, as Edmund Wright found at Arduaine (see p. 265). Creator of Sissinghurst Vita Sackville-West put it bluntly: ‘Never. Never, never. Not that hard metal plaque at my door. Nigel can do what he likes after I am dead, but as long as I live, no Nat Trust or any other foreign body shall have my darling.’ Sissinghurst was eventually given to the National Trust in 1967, five years after her death. It is impossible to over-estimate how important the two Trust organisations have been to the conservation of British gardens. Gardens in private hands seldom last for more than two or three generations and this is particularly true of the grandest gardens, on a vast scale, which can be unsustainably expensive to maintain. Some such gardens have required serious renovation work when the Trust bodies have taken over, while others have needed to be restored almost from scratch. As was made clear by the announcement of proposed property closures in March 2009, the National Trust for Scotland cannot afford to look after all of the many gardens it has, and there is little chance of their taking on any more. Several listed in this book, including Kellie Castle and Arduaine, were threatened with closure until public outcry saved them, at least in the short term, but at the time of writing the second edition of this book, yet another round of garden cutbacks was being imposed, the result of which will mean fewer qualified and skilled NTS gardeners, an increase in temporary seasonal staff and a loss of continuity and skills. Good graduates from the NTS’s own heritage horticulture course are leaving Scotland in search of work, and the only possible result is a decline in the standard of NTS gardens.

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The Reid report in 2010 led to the streamlining of NTS governance and insisted that the organisation needed to review what it owned. If NTS are to ‘do less, better’, as Reid insisted that they must, then they need to decide what to discard. The NTS Property Portfolio Review 2012–13 at last deals with this fundamental issue. NTS have admitted that their building and artwork evaluation methodology is not adequate for grading gardens: There are no coherent national or international standards for the evaluation of a heritage garden or designed landscape . . . we were confronted with the task of either finding a set of existing standards, or making our own. The starting point for the Review was to take recognised standards and apply them, so the former was the preferred strategy. Indeed, we did find a useful set of guidance in the Florence Charter (Preservation of Historic Gardens, 1981). The essence of this Charter is that ‘a historic garden is an architectural and horticultural composition of interest to the public from the historical or artistic point of view’. As such, it is to be considered as a monument.

(NTS, ‘Property Portfolio Review’, p. 21) The National Trust for Scotland evaluation of their portfolio including gardens and designed landscapes uses a grading with seven criteria: value as individual works of art in their own right; historic value; horticultural, arboricultural or silvicultural value; architectural value; scenic value; nature conservation value; and archaeological value. ‘Current condition and integrity’ are also taken into consideration. The NTS Property Review is probably the most important document of its kind ever produced in Scotland, and it will have far-reaching consequences, not least of which is to ensure that the most important gardens get more resources, and those considered less significant may have to be closed or operated by voluntary bodies or partnerships outside the main NTS portfolio. Reid suggested ‘guardianship, tenancy and partnership at national and local levels’. The assessment of gardens in the review is complicated by the fact they are treated as a single entity with the buildings and wider land holdings. So for example Brodick Estate and Falkland Palace are rated very highly as a whole, even if the gardens themselves are of relatively low significance. Other topscoring building- garden-estate combinations include Crathes and Culross.

High-scoring gardens include Branklyn, Broughton House, Inverewe and Kellie Castle. Relatively low-scoring gardens include Arduaine, Crarae, Greenbank, Malleny and Pitmedden. Their future is less secure.

Inveresk Lodge scores lowest of all in the review and would have been closed in 2009 were it not for the fact that some of Scotland’s most influential people live near this garden and forced an NTS U-turn. The NTS has challenged this local group to come up with a plan to take over the running of the garden, but this has not been forthcoming. It is a garden with such low conservation value that NTS should surely not devote scarce resources to it when other more deserving gardens are suffering further staff cutbacks. Will alternative models

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such as trusts save NTS gardens in the long term? If a large enough group of motivated volunteers and fundraisers can be found and NTS red tape is not too restrictive, then there is no reason why not. Alternatively, if gardeners need to be paid for, then a generous benefactor needs to be found and/or a significant endowment created, sufficient to fund the garden. Unless there is significant investment in non-core gardening – cafés, shops etc – visitor figures are very unlikely to increase and therefore income is always likely to be low. For the few gardens run by private trusts, Galloway House and Kildrummy for example, income barely meets running costs and trustees are often reluctant to make the daring decisions sometimes needed to move the gardens on. Decline is usually inevitable. Every year another great garden slips off the radar, usually away from public view.

Historic Scotland’s ‘Gardens and Designed Landscapes Inventory’ lists most of Scotland’s most important sites but the organisation has little statutory power to intervene. Some legal protection is given in planning, but current legislation cannot save gardens, only structures/buildings. I’m not easily persuaded that state handouts should be used to save gardens. It should always be borne in mind that most of these large gardens were created as self-conscious extravagance. Part of the point of their existence was to demonstrate how rich the owners were, what ‘good taste’ their money could buy and how many gardeners they could employ. These gardens were never meant to be affordable or sustainable. With the exception of the great botanic gardens, almost all of Britain’s ‘great’ gardens have been made by rich individuals. The setting-up of the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland has led to public access to many of Britain’s ‘great’ houses and gardens. Few of these gardens were created with any plans for the general public to enjoy them. They were built by the exclusive few for the exclusive few to enjoy. Popping in for a look in those days would have meant risking being peppered with shot by one of the gamekeepers. Now that the gardens are publicly owned or in the Trust, the playthings of the rich have in effect been ‘nationalised’ for us all to enjoy.

Pitmedden in Aberdeenshire is a good example of the resources required to maintain a large-scale formal garden: three miles of box hedging clipped at least twice a year and 30,000 annuals to plant out is extremely labour-intensive and therefore very expensive.

Conservation of private gardens Since the first edition of this book came out in 2009, a worryingly large number of gardens have gone from public access: either sold or closed down. Jura House, Torosay, Suntrap, Kerrachar, Myres Castle, Eckford, Ladyburn, Blair House, Aiket Castle and many more. It was ever thus. In previous generations garden lovers mourned the passing of Keillour, Ascreavie, Balbithan, Belhaven House and some of Scotland’s other fine private gardens. Those who remember the Knox Findlays, George and Betty Sherriff, Mary MacMurtrie and Sir George

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Taylor, will of course be disappointed, but I doubt that many of these gardens could or should have been ‘saved’, particularly these intensely personal plantsmen’s gardens, so intrinsically linked with the character and history of their creators. Without their input and energy, is there anything lasting which can be preserved? Who knows what the future of the gardens at Torosay Castle or Jura House might be, both sold in recent years and now closed to visitors.

As some gardens close/decline or die, new gardens are born every year, which makes things exciting for visitors and garden writers alike. In the five years since the last edition over 120 new gardens are included in this book. There are also heart-warming stories of gardens which are rescued from oblivion and given a new lease of life. Examples include Mike and Sue Thornley’s on-going stewardship and improvement of the woodland garden at Glenarn, near Helensburgh, the recent work at William Bruce masterpieces at Kinross House and Balcaskie, and the rebuilt Victorian fernery at Ascog on Bute by the late Wallace and Katherine Fyfe.

Important though the great Scottish gardens are, this book also covers a significant number of exceptional, often little known private gardens, some large and others on a more modest scale. Most of these open each year under Scotland’s Gardens (formerly Scotland’s Gardens’ Scheme) as individual gardens or as members of group openings where several gardens in one street or village band together. The Plant Heritage National Collections (formerly NCCPG), have allowed many keen hobby gardeners recognition for their work in collecting and conserving sometimes unfashionable plants to prevent them from being lost. And all over Scotland there are thriving community gardens. Britain’s range of commercially available plant species and cultivars is wider than ever, which can be witnessed in the ever-increasing girth of the RHS Plant Finder, now listing over 70,000 plants. In this area at least, we have never had it so good.

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The Scottish Tourist Industry: Marketing and Promoting Scottish Gardens Scotland enjoys around 8% of UK tourism revenue, attracts approximately 2.2 million annual tourist visits from abroad and 6.9 million from other parts of the UK. Scotland’s tourism industry contributed around £4.3 billion (10% of GDP) to the country’s economy in 2012. Surveys conducted by VisitScotland suggest that gardens are one of Scotland’s top five draws for tourists. You would therefore imagine that VisitScotland, the organisation responsible for Scotland’s Tourism industry, would have given the marketing of gardens a high priority.

Sadly, until recently, this has been far from the case. The organisation charged with promoting tourism in Scotland, VisitScotland is a highly subsidised organisation, receiving £44 million in core revenue grant in 2012, for example. To put this in some perspective, VisitEngland only received around £11 million for the same period and recieves 80 per cent of the UK foreign visitor spend. I don’t think Scotland has seen value for money for this enormous subsidy. Worst of all was the fiasco that was the website VisitScotland.com, which for many years suffered two irreconcilable aims in a public/private partnership: to attract and inform visitors and to maximise revenue for the private shareholders. At long last politicians woke up to this issue, calling the then current business model ‘patently flawed and obsolete’ and recommending instead a focus on ‘information provision and a comprehensive, free, listing service. The website is now back in public ownership; it still needs a great deal of work to make it truly fit for purpose. See how long it takes to find gardens on the site, if you want to see how things have improved. Many of VisitScotland’s staff are dedicated, hardworking and efficient, but over many years have been let down by poor leadership and almost constant naïve political meddling, leading to the endlessly disruptive and expensive restructuring which has gone on in recent years, demoralising staff and destroying continuity. Do these restructurings bring an improved service or better initiatives? Often not, appears to be the conclusion.

Gardens are one of Scotland’s most significant attractions, and many of them are attached to historic houses and castles. They are cheap to visit, seldom subsidised by the taxpayer and bring pleasure to millions. I want to persuade our politicians and civil servants in Westminster and Holyrood, and VisitScotland in particular, to take this extraordinary and unique resource seriously. The fact that both domestic and foreign tourist numbers have declined by 13% in 2012 compared to 2005 suggests that the country is not being marketed well. If we are to believe in VisitScotland’s avowed ambition to ‘boost Scottish tourism revenue by 50 per cent during the next decade’, then more effective marketing of gardens

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is clearly one of the principal ways that they might achieve it. Garden and nursery tourism of course has a beneficial knock-on effect on hotels, catering, transportation and other parts of the economy. At last in 2013–14 VisitScotland, prompted by garden owners and organisations, has agreed to focus attention on the potential of Scotland’s garden tourism. Not before time. Watch this space.

In common with some other visitor attractions, visitor numbers for some Scottish gardens have been static or declining in the last couple of years. There are several possible reasons. The weather is sometimes to blame; wet weekends are a garden-visiting disaster. Other factors may include budget airlines making trips to the sun more accessible, a strong pound, midges, poor marketing and alternative visitor attractions. Scotland has rather too many fine gardens for the number of people who live here. Few Scottish gardens receive more than 10,000 visitors a year and therefore entry fees can rarely make gardens self-sustaining, however good they are. There is a perception amongst some Scots that garden visiting is simply posh people visiting other posh people’s gardens. Scotland’s Gardens (Scheme) ‘Yellow Book’ gardens and their owners tend to confirm the impression that garden visiting is a middle-aged, white, middle- and upper-class activity. Contrast this with gardening itself, which is enjoyed by a huge range of Scotland’s population, of every demographic. The reality is that anyone, of almost any age or background, can enjoy a good garden. I’d like to inspire more people to get out and around their country on short breaks to see what we have to offer. What better thing to do on a crisp February weekend when few other visitor attractions are open, than go for a walk through carpets of snowdrops?

Why not spend a weekend in the woodland gardens of Argyll in April or May when the rhododendrons are at their peak, or in Perthshire and Fife with lots of fine gardens close enough to visit several in one day? Why not go island hopping to Gigha, Shetland or Bute, all of which have excellent gardens, or tour the south-west’s perennials nurseries and woodland and walled gardens? For house and garden combinations, you can’t do better than Aberdeenshire’s castle trail.

With this book in hand or the Scotland’s Gardens annual ‘Yellow Book’, you can spend Sunday afternoons in some of Scotland’s other hidden garden jewels.

You’ll be amazed at what there is. I noted on my travels that it is often the gardeners who claim they don’t have time to visit other gardens in other parts of the country. This year, why not put down your spade, leave the weeds to grow for a few days and get out and about and meet people just like you, who can’t wait to show off their gardens? Wherever you come from and whatever your age, some of Scotland’s gardens should certainly delight you and might inspire you to create your own piece of paradise . . . ready for inclusion in the next edition of this book. George Reid in his report on National Trust Governance grasped the urgent need to market Scotland and its treasures in a joined up fashion, what he called ‘Team Scotland – joint working with other heritage agencies in procurement, marketing, ticketing, publications, electronic point of sale and visitor information centres.’ This sounds like a first-rate approach to marketing Scotland’s gardens and its wider tourism offering. Meetings were taking place with VisitScotland as this book was going to press. The following list would go

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some way towards achieving the goals: 1. Joined-up thinking. The organisations responsible for Scotland’s gardens, the Royal Botanic Gardens, The National Trust for Scotland, Scotland’s Gardens and private gardens need to work together and with VisitScotland to offer the best most up to date information for the visitor, both domestic and from abroad.

2. The obvious starting point is a properly designed single web portal accessed from VisitScotland’s home page which contains full information on all the gardens and nurseries of Scotland. A monthly e-newsletter with details of gardens to visit and events would be popular. Social media is under-utilised.

Garden visiting is weather-dependent and often spontaneous. So people need to know ‘visit the garden this weekend . . . see this now’.

3. Tourist information centres must support local gardens. They need to display local garden leaflets without charge rather than requiring gardens to buy space. At the moment they tend to be filled with non-local mega-attractions with the marketing budgets to afford this. Staff need to be trained in garden tourism.

4. Obvious opportunities to market gardens and other attractions are not being used. The CalMac ferries are a perfect example of what not to do. On boats to Islay and Bute I noted that there were virtually no locally relevant books, leaflets or information available on what to do on the islands. These ferries are government-subsidised and as such should be forced to market their destinations properly. All they seem to sell is lowest common denominator tat.

5. VisitScotland must realise that not all gardens have a marketing budget. The Snowdrop Festival showed how good marketing can create visitor numbers where previously there were none. And the participating gardens were not charged to take part. This is the only viable model. As soon as hefty charges are levied, only the ‘big guys’ will participate.

6. Visitors need help joining the dots: short break regional garden holidays visiting the best gardens at the best times of year. Cornwall has proved that this works. Argyll in May, Aberdeenshire in July, the south-west in June, Perthshire for autumn colour . . .

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Problems and Issues Facing Scottish Gardens and Horticulture In many ways we are enjoying a golden era of Scottish gardens and nurseries.

However, I’m not complacent enough to think that all is rosy in the world of Scottish horticulture. As has already been discussed, the National Trust for Scotland will have to rationalise its garden portfolio, which may result in some closures while many of the best private gardens are run on a shoestring. Britain has a major shortage of skilled and trained gardeners and horticulturalists. This is a traditionally low-paid profession and many gardeners used to be trained on the job as apprentices; however, vocational gardeners have often found the need to seek higher-paid jobs (due to the inexorable rise of house prices, for example), with the consequence that fewer stay within the profession. Increasingly, horticultural colleges are shrinking or closing down. It might have seemed like a good idea in the 1980s to open up further education to the free market, but the consequence was a dilution of the former centres of excellence and a plethora of mediocre courses and a shortage of experienced lecturers. Scotland needs a small number of well-funded centres of horticultural excellence with first-class tuition.

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Threave and Auchincruive have traditionally trained Scotland’s most talented gardeners and horticulturalists.

Without such centres of excellence, the quality of teaching and therefore of graduating students is not high enough.

The National Trust for Scotland’s ‘Centre of Excellence in Heritage Horticulture’, using some of its gardens to create an educational resource, has considerable potential if it proves sustainable. Much of the traditional horticultural industry in Scotland is in decline due to cheap imported plants and the rise of DIY and garden centre chains which demand uneconomic margins of their suppliers. Every time Tesco, Asda and the like open a store, they squeeze the life out of independent retailers. They drive greengrocers, butchers, chemists, bakers and hardware stores out of business and I have no doubt the same fate awaits smaller garden centres and nurseries. Tesco’s takeover of Scottish firm Dobbies has proved detrimental for almost everyone else in Scottish horticulture due to the effect on the supply chain. Dobbies used to buy from Scottish suppliers and indirectly sustained many small businesses and jobs. Big chains only want national suppliers (who can supply all their stores in the UK) and as a matter of routine, they demand unsustainable terms and rebates from their suppliers, many of whom are small family-owned nurseries who cannot afford to cut their margins. For example when Dobbies took over Sandyholm in the Clyde valley, many Scottish suppliers saw a major part of their turnover disappear, more or

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less overnight. The long term effect of smaller firms being driven out of business means that in future you may struggle to buy Scottish-grown plants at all. The large garden centre chains source most of their plants from Holland and Italy, grown in over-small pots with misleading labels. Scottish gardens are much better off with Scottish-grown plants which have travelled fewer miles, are better acclimatised and selected for production because they grow well in Scotland.

‘Plant miles’ matter just as much as food miles. Since the first edition of this book came out, a significant number of Scottish nurseries have gone to the wall and more will likely follow. I urge you to support the independent sector while it still exists; if Scotland’s gardeners do not support our own horticultural industry, it may not last much longer.

Pests and diseases have long been something gardeners have battled with, whether using chemicals or cultivation practices. Almost all the effective chemicals still licensed for use in gardens are now under threat from the EU, which up till now has banned only the most toxic or dangerous. Sodium chlorate was banned from 2009, glyphosate (Roundup®), myclobutanil (used for rose mildew and rust) and many others are under review. I guarantee that if all these chemicals disappear, Scotland’s farmers and gardeners will be in serious trouble, whatever the green lobby may claim. A major concern is the spread of new plant pathogens such as Ash dieback (Chalara fraxinea) and Sudden oak death (Phytophthora ramorum, and P. kernoviae). The Phytophthora species attack Rhododendron, Camellia, Magnolia, Viburnum, Drimys, Japanese larch and many other plants, particularly in shady woodland gardens, and has caused serious damage in some of the famous Cornish woodland gardens and one or two in western Scotland. There are attempts to eradicate it, but I suspect that this will likely be in vain and we will just have to live with this disease as we already do with so many others. The most worrying thing is that it spreads readily in the wild Rhododendron ponticum, often causing dieback, not necessarily fatally, and then this infection can spread to other trees and shrubs. There is no doubt that Scotland’s great woodland gardens are under threat from this disease. Cornish gardens which have used the chainsaw to open up gardens and reduce over-crowding have found that infection reduces or disappears. Many Scottish gardens will need similar treatment. Ash dieback is expected to cover the whole country in a matter of years. This was probably brought to the UK on imported ash seedlings. Climate change is, of course, another concern. It may allow gardeners to grow less hardy plants, but the downsides are much more worrying than any benefits. The most significant in the short term seems to be changes in rainfall patterns leading to widespread drought and flooding cycles and increased fungal diseases.

Nine ways of improving Scotland’s gardens and horticultural industry 1. The National Trust for Scotland has the responsibility of conserving and maintaining much of Scotland’s most significant garden heritage. I’m

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

convinced that as an organisation it favours buildings over gardens, and so gardens often get a raw deal with regard to resources. NTS must be allowed to rationalise its portfolio. If cuts need to be made, allowing NTS to ‘do less better’ as John Reid put it during his NTS review, then some gardens with little conservation or historical value should probably be removed from the NTS portfolio and either run by local volunteers or closed, and their resources used to support the more important gardens in the portfolio.

Scottish gardens and planned landscapes need to be recognised at government level as being of national and international importance.

Gardens are part of the heritage and culture of Scotland and great gardens are no less culturally significant than paintings, buildings or music. Who decides that Little Sparta is less worthy of subsidy than Scottish Opera, for example?

The Historic Scotland Planned Landscape Inventory has limited value unless it leads to protection of the landscape of sites listed. With protection must come assistance to owners with upkeep and repairs, in the forms of grants, labour, favourable tax and inheritance breaks.

Gardening needs to be more widely recognised as a major force for social good. Community gardens all over Scotland foster inclusion, pride, fitness and healthy eating. Gardens have a role to play in education and the physical and mental health of the nation, demonstrated by the large number of gardens affiliated to the charity Trellis, based in Perth.

Significant private gardens open to the public should be able and encouraged to apply for match funding for tree surgery and major repairs to significant structures such as walled gardens, greenhouses etc. An endowment fund could be set up for this which gardens could apply to.

There seems to be little government interest in or support for the future of the Scottish horticultural industry. There is considerable scope to market Scottish plants for Scottish gardens. The issue of ‘plant miles’ needs to be brought to the fore, and the country of origin of plants should be compulsory on plant labels. The free movement of plants into the UK from Europe and further afield needs to be far more vigilantly policed to keep out diseases and pests.

VisitScotland and other organisations (NTS, SG, RBGE and so on) which market Scotland’s visitor attractions need to work together to market Scotland’s gardens in a professional, accessible manner, preferably via a web portal. The VisitScotland website must have a properly designed gardens section easily accessible from the VisitScotland home page, fully comprehensive and updated regularly. If they can’t or won’t provide it, it should be outsourced.

Scotland needs a small number of properly funded training in horticulture in centres of excellence. As well as lecturers, Scottish horticultural experts such as nurserymen, designers and garden centre owners should be encouraged and funded to lecture or teach the next generation. Students need guidance from those working in the trade.

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9. Gardening skills and access to land for growing crops for individuals and communities are central to the evolution of local food economies. There are many examples of best practice in Scotland and south of the border, but funding tends to be wasted on initiatives such as the Climate Challenge Fund, which spent millions on achieving very little. It just needs joined-up government. I have read dozens of overlapping and repetitive Scottish government and NGO reports on this issue. It is time to stop talking and just get the job done.

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Criteria for Entry in Scotland for Gardeners This book’s core consists of entries describing Scotland’s gardens, nurseries, garden centres and horticultural organisations. I have included limited coverage of some of Scotland’s best wildflower and forest/woodland sites; for further details on Scotland’s wild places, consult the excellent guides listed in the Bibliography. Details of some environmental and conservation bodies are listed too.

Gardens I have tried to include almost all gardens in Scotland open to the public regularly or by appointment. There are some gardens which only open for Scotland’s Gardens (Scheme) one day a year and I have even slipped in one or two which are not really open at all but are so good that you will need to write a persuasive letter to let you in. Be aware that gardens change their opening and closing times at short notice, so make use of the ‘Yellow Book’ and Scotland’s Gardens (www.scotlandsgardens.org) and www.glendoick.com (follow links to Scotland for Gardeners) websites to check the latest information. Many of Scotland’s best gardens are owned by people who don’t want constant visitors but don’t mind a few from time to time. Your tact and good behaviour will let you in and probably the next people who ask. A few gardens such as the excellent Bower House and Balcaskie have asked not to be included in this book, so you’ll need to look them up on the Scotland’s Gardens website to see if they are open.

Nurseries and garden centres Scotland is blessed with a variety of specialist retail nurseries and a dwindling number of fine independent garden centres. Most of these are automatically included in this book if they grow their own plants. I have not included nurseries and cash-and-carries which are trade/wholesale only. For garden centres I asked myself two questions: Does it have a speciality? And is this a place a non-local would be interested in visiting? This is true whether the garden centre sells a huge range of seed potatoes, rhubarb, azaleas, ferns, pots, grows its own bedding, has a huge range of Koi carp or a great restaurant. All are equally

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deserving of inclusion. If the answer is no to both questions I have generally not included them.

Scotland’s Horticultural Societies This book lists many specialist horticultural societies, which cover a wide spectrum of interests from vegetables to flower arranging, sweet peas to rhododendrons (see p. 492). In addition, Scotland has an astonishing number of national and local horticultural societies. These vary greatly in size and some come and go from year to year so there is never a definitive list. Some have websites and this is usually the best way to get in touch with them, as the society office bearers tend to change from year to year. Most offer a similar range of activities: lectures and workshops, journals and newsletters, garden visits and shows. I had toyed with the idea of including all Scotland’s local horticultural clubs and societies in this book until I learned that there may be as many as 400.

Thankfully, the Scottish Gardeners Forum (www.scottishgardenersforum. org.uk) has a database of nearly all of them. All you need to do is contact SGF and they’ll put you in touch with your nearest one.

Shows Though shows have seen somewhat of a decline over the last 50 years, there are still plenty of good ones around the country, some large and some small. The Scottish Rock Garden Club runs shows in several Scottish towns and cities in spring. Many other societies have annual shows: the Scottish Rhododendron Society and the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society for example. Some shows are covered in the entries under the societies themselves and forthcoming dates can be found on their websites. ‘Gardening Scotland’ at Ingliston is Scotland’s largest show. Abandoned by the RHS almost before it had got going, it was taken on by Rural Projects and has been well run by Jim Jermyn and his team for many years. This show has actually become a better and more relaxed event without the RHS and attracts thousands to Ingliston the first weekend in June. The indoor displays are usually impressive and you are certainly in retail heaven if you like sourcing interesting plants from specialist nurseries. The main disappointment is the generally relatively low standard of outdoor gardens, partly due to the weather and the lack of available sponsorship. The show could do with an injection of imagination, as it does tend to follow the same formula from year to year. Late summer sees the Ayr and Dundee flower shows, somewhat swamped by the selling of tat and clobber, but with displays of carrots, parsnips, Kelsae onions, leeks, fuchsias, dahlias and chrysanthemums.

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Getting Around Scotland and Suggested Garden Itineraries It is possible to visit many of the gardens in this book by public transport if you have plenty of time, but there is no doubt that a car is almost essential for garden visiting in many rural areas. Car hire can be relatively cheap in the UK, but petrol is expensive and narrow roads in the west are best navigated in small cars.

Trains cover much of the country and some gardens can be reached by the rail network with a bit of walking or use of taxis. Rail rover tickets valid for several days are good value for touring the country. The Highland Rover includes trains, buses and some CalMac ferries in the Highland region, while the Freedom of Scotland passes cover the whole country. Some of these tickets are for non-UK tourists only, and must be purchased before you arrive in the UK. Scotland has a good network of buses, and local buses will generally let you off as near gardens as they can, on their route. In remote areas post buses are used but beware, as they only follow the route once a day. You can try hitching, but this seems to be a declining way of getting around. Several operators offer minibus tours of gardens which are good value for small groups. Scheduled garden tours are offered by Brightwater Holidays based in Fife. Islands usually require the use of CalMac ferries (0800 066 5000; www.calmac.co.uk). It is not necessary to take your car to Achamore (Gigha), Colonsay, Brodick (Arran) or gardens on Bute as gardens can be reached on foot and public transport is good.

Recommended garden tours in spring and summer I am often asked to recommend itineraries in different parts of Scotland for different times of year. I have concentrated in the seasons of spring for woodland gardens and summer for walled gardens, perennials and fruit and vegetables. See pp. 498–501 for snowdrops, trees and autumn colour suggestions.

Edinburgh, Borders and south-west Scotland: spring Starting or finishing with Royal Botanical Garden Edinburgh, head south to Dawyck, near Peebles, but beware that this garden can be badly frosted, particularly in April. Head south-west to some amazing spring gardens: Threave, Corsock, Glenwhan, Logan and Logan House and Castle Kennedy for displays of rhododendrons, magnolias, spring bulbs and lots more.

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Edinburgh, Borders and south-west Scotland: summer Don’t miss RBG Edinburgh and Shepherd House (limited opening), plus nurseries near Edinburgh such as Binny Plants and Macplants. Then head south to Kelso, to Floors and its amazing walled garden. Two private gardens with limited opening are the roses at Carolside and the gardens at Portmore. Head west into Dumfries and Galloway where the walled garden at Shambellie is worth a detour. Threave’s walled garden, rock garden and perennial displays are good all summer long. Further west Cally Gardens, Glenwhan and Logan are good year-round gardens, the latter with tender plants in one of Scotland’s mildest climates.

Perthshire, Fife and central Scotland: spring Cluny, Branklyn, Glendoick for rhododendrons and woodland plants in April– May in a mild year and May in a cold or late one.

Perthshire, Fife and central Scotland: summer My ‘big four’ for this time of year are probably Kellie Castle, Cambo, Pitmuies, Drummond Castle, probably too many to squeeze into a long day. Kellie and Cambo are 15 minutes apart, the other two at least an hour away by car.

Argyll and the west: spring You could spend up to two weeks or more visiting all the great west coast spring gardens from Inverewe and Attadale in the north to woodland gardens in Argyll and the islands: Arduaine, Crarae, Benmore and Glenarn are probably the big four. Ardkinglas, An Cala and Achamore on Gigha are also well worth visiting.

North-east: summer Garden and castle combinations reign up here: roses at Drum, perennials at Crathes, fruit at Fyvie, perennials, fruit and vegetables at Castle Fraser and the parterre at Pitmedden.

Northern loop From Inverness, the series of walled gardens along the coastal route: Dunrobin, Langwell and Dunbeath (last two by appointment only), Sandside, Castle of May, perhaps a detour to Orkney or Sheltand . . . back via Inverewe whose fine walled garden and southern hemisphere plants are well worth seeing in summer and Attadale.

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Glasgow, Ayrshire, Bute: summer On Bute, three great attractions are Mount Stuart, Ardencraig’s bedding and Askog Fernery, all doable on a daytrip from Wemyss Bay to Rothsay. Culzean castle on the Ayrshire coast is the must visit garden in this part of the world.

Land art, sculpture and artist gardens Scotland has the possibly the world’s largest concentration of this hard-to-define category of sculpture in gardens and landscapes and in sculpting the landscape itself. The poet of the movement is Ian Hamilton Finlay, whose masterpiece at Little Sparta is a must visit (open limited afternoons in summer). The major contemporary player is Charles Jencks, who has created both his own private Garden of Cosmic Speculation at Portrack near Dumfries (open one day per year) and landforms at Juniper Artland, the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and a new development at Crawick Artland. The Glenkiln sculptures and various works by Andy Goldsworthy and Joe Smith can be found in gardens and in wild locations in Dumfries and Galloway.

Jupiter Artland

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How To Use This Book I have divided Scotland up into regions. The boundaries, particularly in the centre, can be rather arbitrary. I have taken distance into account so each region could be used as a day or two-day trip to visit several gardens in one go. I’ve tried to make the entries as up to date as possible but unfortunately it is inevitable that one or two of the gardens and nurseries close each year. To that end I list amendments and changes that I hear about on my website www.glendoick.com, which will be a source of the most up-to-date information on garden openings.

Do let me know via the website if you find that any gardens in this book are closed or no longer worth a look. And even more important, let me know of anything I have missed, which can be included in any further editions. The opening times and other details of gardens are believed to be correct at time of writing but be aware that times can change at short notice. Make use of websites to ascertain latest opening status of gardens. Many gardens listed open for Scotland’s Gardens on one or more days per year and many also accept visits by appointment. If you really want to see a garden which is not open at a convenient time, write a decent, old-fashioned, well-informed letter saying why you want to visit. ‘I have heard about your amazing new peony border and as I have the national collection . . .’. I cannot over-emphasise how important it is to ‘behave’ when visiting gardens. Don’t kid yourself that your ‘wee bit of pocket-stuffing’ does not matter. Taking seed heads and cuttings is stealing. And if you do steal things, you are likely to cause garden owners to shut their gates.

People are always telling me how their mum ‘nicks a few plants or cuttings’, as if this were OK. It is particularly depressing when many of the rare treasures dug up in full flower are almost certain to die. No one wins. Most gardeners are happy to share with those who ask. Most gardeners welcome children, but don’t let them run riot. My own children, Jamie and Finn, test-drove many of the children’s attractions on offer for the first edition and I have included information on these where available. Dogs are welcome at some properties but many insist that dogs are not allowed. Almost without exception, dogs must be kept on a lead at all times. If a garden has no dog symbol, you can assume that dogs are not allowed. Ballindalloch (see p. 82) gets my unofficial award for Scotland’s most dog-friendly garden. It even has a dog maze!

I have included disability access information where available. I have, however, noted that many SG gardens claim good disabled access when frankly the terrain, steps and gravel paths mean that you would need a strong helper to get a wheelchair round. The wheelchair symbol enclosed in brackets means that the garden is partly or theoretically accessible.

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Aside from walking in the countryside, garden visiting is just about the cheapest activity available. Gardens are astonishing good value and few of them charge more than £5. Many are free. You usually pay as much for the latte and scone at the end as you do for an hour or two visiting the garden.

Key to entries Opening times and prices Gardens tend to change opening times and prices from year to year, so I have endeavoured to give general details about likely opening times for the foreseeable future. Many NTS and larger gardens open at Easter or on 1 April, whichever is earlier, and close in September or October.

Prices are given in bands: £: up to £3

££: £3 – £5.99

£££: £6+

A price band with an asterisk (e.g. £*) indicates that gardens are free to those with an appropriate membership or season ticket for organisations such as National Trust for Scotland, National Trust or Historic Scotland. Some gardens have free entry to Royal Horticultural Society members, though sometimes on off-peak days only. These gardens are listed in the RHS handbook and its magazine, The Garden.

Contacting gardens Where possible I have given several methods of getting in touch with garden owners with address, phone, email and website details. Some owners do not want phone/email details published and you may have to write to apply to visit.

Email is excellent for those who use it regularly but beware: some email addresses are clearly rarely used. If phoning/faxing from abroad, the UK code is 44 and you need to remove the ‘0’, so for example 01738 860205 becomes 441738 860205.

Many garden owners have expressed frustration that occasionally people make appointments to visit and then do not turn up. It is only polite to make contact and cancel if you can’t make it.

Dogs Only those gardens which are marked with the dog symbol allow dogs, on a lead. Assume that you can’t take your dog, if there is no symbol. Those with the symbol allow dogs in the woodland and/or policies but not in the gardens themselves. It goes without saying that you should take away anything which your dog leaves in any part of a cultivated garden.

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Catering The catering symbol is for cafÊs and restaurants only. Most gardens open under Scotland’s Gardens offer teas at the garden or nearby on open days, so I have not included this as a symbol.

Plants for sale Likewise many gardens offer surplus plants for sale on SG open days but only those gardens with a nursery/garden shop or general production of plants are listed with the PLA symbol.

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Symbols Self-catering accommodation for rent Bed and breakfast Catering (café/restaurant, etc) Disabled good access Partly accessible, or accessible with help Dogs allowed, all dogs MUST be on a lead. If the dog symbol does not appear, assume that dogs are not allowed Dogs allowed in part of property, usually policies only but not in the gardens Gift shop Hotel with meals House or castle can be visited Mail order nursery Plant sales Toilets Play area or other things for children to see/do Facebook Twitter Social media barely existed when the first edition of this book came out. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I’m not much of a fan but I do understand that some people can’t live without Facebook and Twitter. I have added these symbols where nurseries and gardens have told me they use them. Many more will probably add them. Equally, within the next five years Facebook might go the way of the fax (which I removed from this edition). It is hard to keep up!

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Scotland for Gardeners

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North (including Orkney and Shetland): Loch Ness, Black Isle, Caithness and East Sutherland The north of mainland Scotland contains some important gardens, often quite widely spaced apart, but the routes between them are mostly spectacular. Most gardens are not far from the sea, which means that a loop around the coastal roads takes in most of them, with a detour across the Black Isle. Some of the best gardens include the castles of Dunrobin and Dunbeath on the east coast and House of Tongue on the north coast. Significant nurseries on Loch Ness, the Black Isle and Beauly Firth include: Abriachan, Ardfearn, Highland Liliums and Poyntzfield Herbs.

Dunrobin Castle

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Abriachan Garden Nursery Abriachan Garden Nursery Lochness-side, Inverness, IV3 8LA Mr and Mrs D. Davidson February–November: daily 9am–7pm or dusk if earlier; gardens £, nursery free A82 Inverness–Drumnadrochit road. Right on the roadside, do NOT follow signs to Abriachan village T: 01463 861232 E: info@lochnessgarden.com www.lochnessgarden.com

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Carved out of a steep, south-facing hillside overlooking Loch Ness, this is a terraced woodland garden which seems to be in perfect harmony with its surroundings. This small nursery specialises in Auricula, Helianthemum (a national collection), hardy geraniums and has all sorts of choice and common plants, especially herbaceous and grasses. I admired the New Zealand grass Chionochloa conspicua near the car park. The Davidsons are an excellent team, a contrast in styles in the way they impart their extensive plant knowledge: she talks non-stop, he listens and interjects briefer pearls of wisdom and they both know their onions. If you need to know what to grow in this area and how to grow it, this is the place to come. They seem to be able to grow almost anything here: steep slopes provide good frost drainage to the loch below, and there is free-draining soil. And the views from the top of the garden over Loch Ness are wonderful. As they say on their website: ‘On one level it is a garden of infinite detail; on another the eye follows sweeps of colour leading into the surrounding magnificence of loch and mountain. The garden is full of plants from the countries where we have previously lived and gardened . . . olearias, pittosporums and flaxes from New Zealand; tea berries and diddle-dee from the Falkland Islands.’

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Amat Amat House is a Ross clan chieftain’s hunting lodge in typical Victorian style with castellations and a small square tower. The remote setting boasts one of the best bits of relict Caledonian pine forest. The house stands on the River Carron, famous for its salmon fishing, and is surrounded by fine mature trees underplanted with rhododendrons surrounding extensive lawns. There are woodland walks along the river bank and you may be lucky enough to spot foxes, stoats, pine martens and otters and who knows, perhaps escaped animals from Paul Lister’s fenced animal park estate next door: moose, wolves, wild boar.

Amat Ardgay, Sutherland, IV24 3BS Jonny and Sara Shaw 1 weekend SG or by appointment; ££ Off A837, take road from Ardgay to Croick 9 miles T: 01863 755320 E: Saraamat@btinternet.com www.amatsalmon.com

Ardfearn Nursery Ardfearn Nursery was established in 1987 on the south shore of the Beauly Firth, in an old farm 4 miles from Inverness; cattle byres and milking sheds were converted to plant sales and production. The nursery was founded by Jim Sutherland and is now headed by his son, Alasdair. The nursery has long been well known for its range of alpines, but they now also grow a huge range of perennials and shrubs as well as bare-rooted hedging and trees in winter. They grow 95% of what they sell on-site and have one of the largest selections of home-grown stock in this part of Scotland. Alpines are demonstrated

Ardfearn Nursery Bunchrew, by Inverness, Highland, IV3 8RH Jim and Alasdair Sutherland Mon–Fri: 9am–5pm; A862 between Inverness and Beauly, approximately 4 miles from Inverness T: 01463 243250 or 01463 223607 www.ardfearn-nursery.co.uk

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in a range of display beds and alpine troughs. Ardfearn also run a gift shop which is eastern and alternative in its range of products. The nursery’s mail order is currently suspended, pending broadband connection locally.

Ballone Castle Ballone Castle Tarbat, Portmahomack, IV20 1RD Annie & Lachlan Stewart 1 day per year Open Doors Scheme and by appointment From A9 near Tain or B9165 to Portmahomack, turn right and first left just before Portahomack E: annie@anta.co.uk

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Architect Lachan Stewart and his wife Annie, founder of the Anta company, spent six years restoring this previously ruined sixteenthcentury castle on the windswept point on the far eastern end of the peninsula between the Dornoch and Moray Firths, and making it a family home. The compact walled garden, which was built from scratch below the castle walls, allows a wide range of plants to be grown while cutting down the force of the ferocious winds.

Matching the colour of the castle, the creamy-yellow lime-washed garden walls curve gracefully at the far end. Lachlan and Annie wanted the garden to relate to the castle itself, using an adapted Pictish pattern for the layout of the beds with a series of laurel, Escallonia and Olearia hedges creating a sort of thick parterre, which then allowed a pallet of carefully chosen plants to establish. These include shrub roses and ramblers on the walls with espaliered apples and gooseberries. Dark purple tulips are matched with white ‘Pheasant Eye’ Narcissus in spring followed in summer by a wide range of perennials and shrubs such as Buddleja. Ballone is a fine achievement in a very challenging site, proving once again that as long as wind can be moderated, a huge range of plants can be grown, even in very exposed sites. The Stewarts also designed the Queen Mother Memorial Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh.

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Ballone Castle

Biblical Garden, Golspie One of two biblical gardens in Scotland, this is the better one, a millennium project created by members of St Andrews Church in Golspie in the grounds of Seaforth House, an old people’s home.

The garden contains biblical references, an open tomb with a large boulder for example, and has contemporary design touches. It is well maintained by volunteers co-ordinated by Anne Barclay. Thankfully the biblical plant connections have been loosely interpreted, as most of the desert plants of Israel and Egypt don’t much care for Scotland’s climate. Jacob’s Ladder gets in due to the name, for example, as do obvious candidates such as Cercis (the Judas Tree) and myrtle. When we visited in June, this was a blaze of colour, with lavender, lupins, delphiniums, valerian, poppies, etc. A stone cross and coloured mosaic added structure. Designed with good access for wheelchairs along gravel paths, this is one of the best community-run gardens in Scotland, definitely well worth a short stop on the A9 or in combination with Dunrobin Castle nearby. The main path provides good wheelchair access, though the side gravel paths may need assistance.

Biblical Garden, Golspie Seaforth House, Golspie, Sutherland, KW10 6RH Ground owned by Highland Council Always open; free On the main A9 road in Golspie town centre, opposite the Orcadian Stone Geology Centre

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Brackla Wood Brackla Wood Culbokie, Dingwall, Ross & Cromarty, IV7 8GY Susan and Ian Dudgeon SG days (June) and by arrangement; ££ From A9 turn off to Culbokie. At far end of village, turn right after playing fields towards Munlochy.

After about a mile turn right into ‘No Through Road’ signposted ‘Upper Braefindon’. Garden is first on left T: 01349 877765 E: smdbrackla@aol.com

Most of Scotland’s woodland gardens are on a relatively large scale, but Brackla Wood shows that this gardening style can be achieved very well in a packed 1-acre garden. Under the Scots pines and other trees are collections of hellebores, particular favourites of Susan Dudgeon, and hostas in a stumpery, created by her husband Ian. A scattering of rhododendrons surround a set of small ponds and the garden attracts a good range of wildlife, including red squirrels and a pine marten. Behind the house is a fine natural rock garden filled with a wide range of alpines and perennials, which is overlooked by a summer house that features an attractive spoked round window rescued by Ian from an old hydro-power plant. Wisteria grows on the house and the property is bordered by a honeysuckle hedge.

Brahan Brahan Near Dingwall, IV7 8EE Mr and Mrs A. Matheson Dell open year round, SG 1 day some years; A835 west from Maryburgh roundabout, 2 miles, wellsignposted E: info@brahan.com www.brahan.com

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Brahan is a 4,000-acre estate not far from Inverness. The original house was demolished in the 1950s and the old stables are now the main house, which has a private garden around it (not open). Brahan is a rather wild and overgrown arboretum (the dell) planted along the driveways, with a collection of fine mature trees, including some UK champions. Most of the best are conifers: redwoods, spruce, hemlock, Thuja, pines, etc., and some are labelled. There are also a few species rhododendrons as well as abundant wildlife/bird life in the lochs, swamps and alongside the River Conon, which runs down to the Cromarty Firth. I was informed that much-needed renovation and tree surgery was planned at Brahan, though I failed to see any sign of it when I visited in August 2013; the place was a bit of an overgrown jungle. Brahan was the home of Scotland’s own version of Nostradamus, Kenneth Mackenzie, known as the Brahan Seer. He was executed in the seventeenth century for his prophecies and predictions, many of which have apparently come true. There are several holiday properties for rent on the estate.

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Brahan

Bught Floral Halls This park and greenhouse complex opened in 1993, next door to the former Inverness Council nursery. Outdoors there are numerous beds of shrubs, alpines and bedding, raised beds and an impressive wildflower meadow. A training programme for people with learning difficulties is run in the gardens. The most popular attractions are the two linked greenhouses: one, with a sunken walkway, is filled with a fine collection of cacti and related plants; the other, with a more tropical feel, boasts houseplants, bromeliads, a waterfall and ponds filled with Koi carp. The 2012 Memory Garden and Tree of Tranquility is a memorial for parents who have miscarried or lost young children. Bught is a popular place, with thousands of visitors each year.

Bught Floral Halls Floral Hall and Training Centre, Bught Lane, Inverness, IV3 5SS Highland Council Daily: April–October 10am–5pm, Nov–March 10am–4pm Follow signs to Fort William/Fort Augustus from centre of Inverness on A82 road to the western edge of town. Turn left just before the bridge over the Caledonian Canal T: 01463 713553 www.invernessfloralhall.com Coffee shop T. 01463 229778

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Castle and Gardens of Mey Castle and Gardens of Mey Thurso, Caithness, KW14 8XH The Queen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust Daily: May–end September 10.30am–4pm, closed first 2 weeks August. SG open days several times a year; ££ (castle extra) Well signposted between Thurso and John O’ Groats T: 01847 851473 F: 01847 851475 www.castleofmey.org.uk

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The Queen Mother bought this castle on the windswept north coast of Scotland in the early 1950s as a dilapidated ruin. The garden is phased for August and September, when she used to holiday in Caithness. The walled garden, right next to the castle, has a 12ft seaward wall to cut down salt spray and is divided into compartments, with hedges and attractive corner turrets. It is rather a jumble of plants: rhododendrons, roses in island beds, buddlejas, herbaceous, mixed borders and lots of fruit on the walls. There are also fine glasshouses. Outside the walled area in the East Garden are plantings of Fuchsia, Potentilla, masses of Astilbe, impressive drifts of Primula florindae and a bed of rugosa roses, with gnarled sycamores providing some wind shelter. The quality of gardening here has been a bit variable since the trust took over, and some visitors complain that some of the essence of the Queen Mother’s garden has now been lost. The castle feels more of a home than the various royal palaces and the many guides in the rooms will tell you the Queen Mother’s story as you go round.

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Dunbeath Castle Dunbeath is one of north Scotland’s most exciting recent garden projects in a stunning location and singular planned landscape. The tree-lined drive frames the castle from afar as you approach, in a deliberately designed piece of drama by nineteenth-century architect David Bryce, who made alterations to a much older (fourteenth century) castle. The vista frames the gleaming cream-white castle perched on the cliff top, with views beyond out to North Sea oil platforms and offshore wind turbines in the far distance. In this book I give David Bryce a hard time for some of his more over-the-top Victorian extravagances, but this one is first class. Given Dunbeath’s situation, wind is obviously an issue; the Threiplands report 100mile-an-hour winds that can blow a human over, so most of the plantings are in the shelter of two matching Victorian walled gardens, one on each side of the drive. The two gardens form a yin–yang or his–hers contrast, reflecting the tastes of the owners. Planted first was the feminine southerly (right-hand) garden, with the original design drawn up in 1998 by Chelsea Gold Medallist Xa Tollemache, whose garden at Helmingham in Suffolk had greatly impressed the Threiplands. The Tollemache structural plan has been implemented but Claire Threipland and gardener Neil Millman have adapted and added to the plantings as the garden has evolved. The garden has a traditional cruciform design with a path following the boundary walls and a cross axis of mirror-planted herbaceous borders in mixed colours. A combination of blue Agapanthus and deepest pink Potentilla caught my eye. The four quadrants each contain a series of

Dunbeath Castle Dunbeath Estate Office, Dunbeath, Caithness, KW6 6ED Mr and Mrs S.W. Murray Threipland By appointment only; ££ Coming north on A9 the castle entrance is on the right entered via Dunbeath village, just before the bridge. Turn right at the village post office and you’ll find the gates at the end of the road T: 01593 731308 E: enquiries@dunbeathestate.com www.dunbeath.co.uk

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contrasting garden rooms, divided by hedges, Fuchsia magellanica, pillars and pergolas, entered from various angles, maze-like as you explore it, revealing new surprises once you have worked your way in, featuring roses, cutting borders, potager combinations, obelisk and column centrepieces. The planting choices are bold and innovative: you won’t often see a purple cabbage, artichoke and allium combination, for example. The long greenhouse contains houseplants, peaches, figs and apricots. Two vantage points to look down on the whole garden are provided by the corner turrets, which also provide great views of the castle and the impressive slate ‘egg’ sculpture designed by Tertious Murray Thriepland and built by Mac Young, who also constructed the garden buildings. The northerly (or left-hand) walled garden is Tertious’s domain, what he calls ‘a water and fantasy garden’, with a water feature made of the old laundry water butts, a series of ponds, a hexagonal ‘sitooterie’ and a glass and copper gazebo on a mound, from which there are great views over and out of the garden. This most masculine of gardens is full of thrusting stonework and buildings, and head gardener Neil has softened the formerly stark effect of the hard landscaping with a wide range of grasses, particularly Miscanthus, which look good right into winter time. Dunbeath is mainly a summer and early autumn garden, but a walk of rhododendrons has recently been planted in the sycamore and beech woodland to give more spring interest. The combination of the most dramatic planned landscapes in Scotland and the excellent and singular walled garden plantings make this one of the best newer Scottish gardens and Julie Edmonstone, Scotland inspector for The Good Gardens Guide, considers Dunbeath the best designed walled garden in Scotland. I certainly agree that it is up with the best. Open by appointment.

Dunrobin Castle Dunrobin Castle Golspie, Sutherland, KW10 6SF Lord Strathnaver Mid March–mid October: Monday–Saturday 10.30am– 4.30/5pm, Sunday 12–4.30pm; £££ castle and gardens. Café in the castle.

Clearly signed just north of Golspie on the A9 Inverness– Wick road, 50 miles north of Inverness T: 01408 633177 E: info@dunrobincastle.net www.dunrobincastle.co.uk

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Dunrobin has probably the most extensive gardens in the north of Scotland, combining formal lines, best seen from the castle high above it, and good planting, best appreciated close up. The nineteenth-century castle was remodelled from an older building and designed for the Duke of Sutherland by Sir Charles Barry, designer with Pugin of the Houses of Parliament. Inspired by French chateaux, with a Victorian Gothic twist, a hint of Disney and a great deal of profligate extravagance, with 189 rooms (only a few of which are open on the tours), Dunrobin is easily the largest house in northern Scotland. The dukedom once covered 1.3 million acres, from which crofters were evicted in the Highland Clearances in the early nineteenth century and replaced with more lucrative sheep; presumably the proceeds were spent on the house. The instigator of the Clearances, the first Duke of Sutherland managed to have a statue erected to himself with an inscription which was surely written

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with bitter sarcasm by the ‘grateful tenantry’, bearing in mind that 15,000 crofters were evicted from his lands. The views from the hills where the monument stands are fine. Barry also designed the formal gardens, which were apparently influenced by those at Versailles and Trentham, near Stoke. The castle is perched high on the rocks, in front of which a series of steep terraces leads down to the flat lawns and the sea beyond the walls at the bottom. The steep bank covered with scrubby shrubs is a somewhat neglected opportunity. The garden below is divided into two parterres, each laid out around circular fountains, surrounded by mature trees. The parterres are well planted with a succession of colour through the seasons; tulips give way to wallflowers, to summer bedding and fuchsias and in autumn, penstemons and dahlias. Rooms are formed by hedges of Sorbus and beech. Step-over trained apples are used to line some of the parterres, while height is given by wooden wigwams, which echo the turrets and minarets of the castle above, onto which climb roses, clematis and sweet peas. Beneath these are bold borders of Nepeta, Geranium, tulips, Asiatic lilies and other perennials and bedding plants, while Aralia elata is used as a feature plant. The historical landscape has been restored and renewed but is being gardened by Ian Crisp and his team in a contemporary manner. Important, courageous strategic

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decisions are being made to cut down overgrown parts and replant, which is to be applauded. As Patrick Taylor notes, the parterre looks great from the castle and the castle from the parterre. There are fine snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells in spring. A spectacular castle, good café, odd museum in the summerhouse and falconry displays make Dunrobin a good day out for all the family. The entry price includes the castle, museum and grounds.

Foulis Castle Foulis Castle Evanton, Ross-shire, IV16 9UX Mrs E. Munro of Foulis By appointment in writing only, well in advance.

Just off the A9 south-west of Evanton T: 01349 830212 www.clanmunro.org.uk/ castle.htm

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Foulis Castle, seat of the clan Munro, was built in the eighteenth century when the previous one was burnt down after the 1745 uprising. The policies have spectacular snowdrops, daffodils, some rhododendrons and azaleas and a young arboretum. The main attraction is the courtyard garden on two levels behind the main house. The lower section by the house is paved, and is dominated by shrub roses; the upper section is gravelled with a peony border, perennials and shrubs, including some more usually associated with the west coast, such as Abutilon, Carpenteria, Leptospermum scoparium and Olearia ‘Henry Travers’.

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Gardens Scotland and Craigiewood B&B At their bed and breakfast, Gavin and Araminta Dalmayer are excellent hosts for garden lovers who want somewhere to stay in the north of Scotland. Gavin is a garden designer and keen plantsman who can organise tours to the gardens of northern Scotland, guides garden tours from House of Aigas, and can advise you where to go depending on what time of year you come and stay. Araminta often assists Claire Macdonald with cookery demonstrations. Craigiewood can accommodate up to six guests and is situated just north of Inverness, on the Black Isle, within an easy day’s driving distance of gardens such as Inverewe, Cawdor and Dunrobin. Tours can be for half or full days or for several days and nights.

Gardens Scotland and Craigiewood B&B Craigiewood, North Kessock, Inverness-shire, IV1 3XG Gavin and Araminta Dalmayer Off A9 north of Kessock, to Drumsmittal and Kilmuir, after 250m turn right to Kilmuir for 2 miles; ignore road to Kilmuir, carry straight on for 1 mile, take right-hand fork, uphill.

Craigiewood 2nd on left T: 01463 731 628 E: gavdal@ gardens-scotland. co.uk Garden Tours www.gardens-scotland.co.uk B&B www.craigiewood.co.uk

Highland Liliums Garden Centre and Nursery This is both a wholesale nursery and a small garden centre. It no longer specialises in lilies, but rather in a wide range of perennials and alpines which are produced in their own nursery. The garden centre also stocks a fine range of roses, shrubs and trees. It is a bit of a challenge to find it, as it lies down a series of winding single-track lanes, but there are road signs. This is an old-style nursery with a great range of plants and Neil MacRitchie and his staff under Sue Mullins really know what grows well in this part of Scotland. A new shop was built in 2006, making this more like a garden centre.

Highland Liliums Garden Centre and Nursery 10 Loaneckheim, Kiltarlity, Beauly, Inverness-shire, IV4 7JQ Neil MacRitchie Monday–Saturday (year round) 8am–5pm, Sunday (April– September only) 10am–5pm Garden centre is signposted from the junction of the A833 Drumnadrochit/Kiltarlity road and the A862 Inverness–Beauly road T: 01463 741698 or 01463 741365 E: highlandliliums@yahoo.co.uk www.highlandliliums.co.uk

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House of Aigas House of Aigas Aigas Field Centre, Beauly, Inverness-shire, IV4 7AD Sir John & Lady Lister Kaye SG 2 days per year or by appointment, open to guests; ££ On the A831 5 miles south of Beauly T: 01463 782443 E: sheila@aigas.co.uk; www.aigas.co.uk

Naturalist and writer John Lister Kaye rescued the 1760s House of Aigas from demolition in the 1970s, and built both his family home and the now famous Aigas Highland Field Studies Centre for the Highlands there. A huge range of courses, tours and activities take place here. The garden is largely the work of Lucy, Lady Lister Kaye, who explained that her husband John loves wildlife and trees but does not understand the rest of the gardening idea. ‘He’s really good at driving a digger’, she was keen to give him that credit at least. The house is set in informal gardens, with a woodland walk with a collection of fine trees planted in Victorian times, including several multi-stemmed Western red cedar, a pond, Japanese maples, azaleas and rhododendrons, carpets of heather, lilies, daffodils and in summer honeysuckle and clematis on the walls. The terrace around the house is attractively planted with hostas, grasses, lilies, shrubs and pots with bedding.

House of Tongue and Eddie’s Garden One of mainland Scotland’s most northerly and isolated walled gardens, House of Tongue was built by the Mackays in 1678 and 1750 and is the home of the Countess of Sutherland. The key to its success is the walled garden, which provides shelter in an exposed,

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windy site and it is a pleasant surprise to find this oasis of horticulture on the north coast of Scotland. Gardener Richard Rowe looks after a fine collection of shrub roses and deep herbaceous borders filled with spectacular lupins, peonies, Geranium, Thalictrum and bedded-out dahlias. By late June the colour is really getting going and the cool northerly location helps things last well, wind and rain permitting. There is also an orchard, a glasshouse with pelargoniums, vegetable garden and a terrace. Another surprise awaits at the end of the drive: Sinclair Cottage was the home of Eddie Mackie, a retired bus driver who rescued the derelict small walled garden by the stable block in the early 1990s and turned it into a charming labour of love, full of herbaceous, annuals, a small pond and a homemade greenhouse, almost overwhelmed with cascades of colour. Eddie died in 2013 but his daughters are still looking after the garden and visitors to House of Tongue are welcome to come by and have a look.

House of Tongue and Eddie’s Garden Tongue, by Lairg, Sutherland, IV27 4XH Countess of Sutherland, SG and by appointment; ££ 40 miles north of Lairg; ½ mile north of Tongue on A838 to Durness. Eddie’s garden is at the end of the main drive next to the farm buildings T: 07944427476 or 01847 611378 Richard Rowe, head gardener E: ginrik@btopenworld.com

Langwell Lodge One of northern Scotland’s outstanding gardens, the garden is reached via a long single track drive through the sheltered Langwell Strath and is far enough from the coast to suffer from spring frosts, which can singe the Rodgersia, hostas and other soft growth. The walled garden is crammed full of plants spilling out onto the paths

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Langwell Lodge Berriedale, Caithness, KW7 6HD Wellbeck Estates SG 2 days in August and by appointment; ££ Turn off the A9 just south of Berriedale, signed to Aultbea and Wag T: 01593 751278/751237 E: macanson@hotmail.com www.scottishhighland holidaylodge.co.uk

with abandon and is designed to peak when the family are in residence in August, for the shooting season. The main herbaceous borders, with a focal point pond at the lower end, are backed with repeat plantings of tall pink Filipendula. Long-time gardener Francis Higgins has now retired after 25 years, and former National Trust gardener Peter McAnson and his wife Jenny now look after the garden. Peter showed me the gravel paths he has put in which show off the perennials better and he has created an unusual border of thyme, hostas and backed with more giant Filipendula and a double parterre bordered by green-leaved autumn sedum and red lettuce and planted with Perovskia. You don’t see that everyday! There are trained fruit trees on the walls and box-edged rose beds and garden sections containing vegetables and cutting borders are divided by yew hedging, with Tropaeolum growing through it. I noted an extensive herb garden, a box-edged border of Shasta daisies and there is a collection of cacti and succulents in the greenhouse.

Lookout, The Kilmuir village is a charming seafront row of houses looking across the Moray Firth to Nairn, Inverness and the Kessog Bridge, reached along a lovely beech-lined road. The village was threatened by ruinous developers so the residents cleverly purchased the surrounding woodland as a community to preserve the quality of the environment. The Veitches are natives of north-east England and moved to Kilmuir in 1984. The land behind their house was essentially a wilderness of trees and weeds on a cliff face. With no particular plan, they commenced from the bottom of the hill, devel-

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oping a series of terraces and dry-stone retaining walls, creating one of Scotland’s most vertical and unusual gardens, ‘only for the surefooted’, as they put it. In the introduction to this book I mention the existential myth of Sysiphus rolling his stone endlessly uphill, only to see it roll back down again. In this case, the rocks were hauled up the hill in sacks as this garden is far too steep even for a wheelbarrow. Thankfully, they did not roll back down again and David’s superhuman efforts to create a network of paths and retaining walls has created one of Scotland’s most unforgettable gardens. The top, where the best views of all can be enjoyed, contains a summer house, planting of grasses and bamboos, a tulip tree and some rhododendrons growing out of any available soil that can be found on the rock face. The top terrace overlooks a texture of yellow, purple and green contrasting shrubs, a couple of ponds and a cascade with water plants. There are several more buildings and sitting-out areas, each one with its own view over the firth and the garden below, with vistas appearing in between the maturing trees and shrubs. The terrace level above the house has a mixture of annuals and cottage garden flowers leading back via a climbing rose walkway to the lowest level behind the house, where there is a small sheltered courtyard, a raised bed vegetable area and a pretty cottage garden. I really enjoyed this garden, probably the least wheelchair accessible in the whole of Scotland, but even then, you could see plenty from the bottom. Only ¾ acre in size, it seems much larger and is almost a vertical garden; you’ll not forget it once you’ve seen it. It is open most summer weekends and you’ll be offered tea and cakes too. The overly modest owners were not sure that it was good enough for this book. I can assure you that it most certainly is!

The Lookout Kilmuir, Inverness, IV1 3ZG David and Penny Veitch May–September: Saturdays and Sundays 11am–4pm; ££ From south, leave A9 to N Kessock, 3rd left at roundabout, left to Kilmuir (about 3 miles). From Tore, leave A9 for N Kessock, follow signs to Kilmuir. Garden is near far end of village T: 01463 731489 E: david@veitch.biz; penny@veitch.biz

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Maggie’s Centre, Inverness Maggie’s Centre, Inverness Raigmore Hospital, Old Perth Road, Inverness, IV2 3UJ Maggie’s Centres Garden accessible at all times.

Free Off the Old Perth Road at the edge of Raigmore Hospital T: 01463 706306 E: highlands@maggiescentres.org

One of a number of Maggie’s Centres for Cancer in Scotland, this one is a striking curved green wooden building which looks like a boat unwinding itself, shedding its hull. The building, designed by architect David Page, is surrounded by echoes of the shape of the building, in Charles Jencks-designed landforms, consisting of two pointed lozenge grass mounds with spirals of white gravel paths leading to the top of each, and grass and gravel patterns on the flat ground. Both building and mounds are inspired by cells in the ‘versica’ shape: pointed ovals. This is a triumph of bold, simple design; bringing garden and building together as a ‘piece’.

Novar Novar Evanton, Ross-shire, IV16 9XL Mr and Mrs Ronald Munro Ferguson SG 1 day in June.

Groups by appointment; ££ A9, passing Storehouse of Foulis, then turn left on B817 to Evanton. Continue through the village T: 01349 831062 E: enquiries@novarestate.co.uk www.novarestate.co.uk

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Novar house is an imposing 1760 mansion above the Cromarty Firth on an extensive sporting estate. The 5-acre walled garden, with a gardener’s cottage set into the wall, is divided into two, with three impressive arches. A long border of Aruncus, Hosta and Alchemilla runs the width of the garden. The eastern half has an oval pool filled with Koi carp, and a large lawn used for weddings, while the western part contains vegetables, trees and a croquet lawn. The extensive water gardens to the west of the house were created by the present owner’s father, who loved hydraulic engineering and was said to be able to make ‘water flow uphill’. A series of natural ponds are linked with waterfalls and steps, now somewhat over-shaded, but with impressive Gunnera, Rodgersia, rhododendrons, maples and two follies. There is also a lochan in the parkland. The Fyrish

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Monument, a folly with several arches, on the hill behind Evanton, was built by Hector Munro in 1792 to commemorate one of his military victories in India. It is quite a climb through pine woods to reach it.

Old Orchard, The ‘The Old Orchard’ surrounds Cromarty’s oldest inhabited dwelling house, part of which dates back to c. 1690. The vast walled garden originally belonged to Cromarty House, which lies to the south. The old orchard is formed from the eastern section of the old garden and forms a handsome enclosure around the beautifully restored house.

When the Dupars bought the property, the garden was a grassy meadow with a few old apple trees. They found metal apple labels on the walls which had belonged to long dead trees and they decided to attempt to replant the historical apple collection. The spoil from

The Old Orchard Miller Road, Cromarty, Black Isle, IV11 8XJ Ken and Kristina Dupar Open to small groups by appointment Cromarty High Street eastwards, turn right, continue to the end of Shore Street, left to Miller Road, right onto the Causeway. Park in lay-by or car park above bowling green on left E: kdupar@ecosse.net www.spanglefish.com/OldOrchard

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constructing a pond and patio was used to create a series of undulating mounds and former Moray Parks boss Donald McBean advised the Dupars on the initial plantings. The garden is a fine mix of tasteful contemporary work such as the summerhouse and ponds, and more traditional plantings of conifers and heathers. An outstanding area is the dry-stone wall terrace and raised bed herb garden on the slope between the house and the garages. The Dupars have created an idyll here and have clearly enjoyed the whole process, taking great pleasure in showing us round. They welcome groups of visitors by appointment.

Poyntzfield Herb Nursery Poyntzfield Herb Nursery Near Balblair, Black Isle, Dingwall, Ross and Cromarty, IV7 8LX Duncan Ross 1 March–30 September: Monday–Saturday 1–5pm; May–August also Sunday 1–5pm B9163 to Cromarty, turn right after junction with the B9160 just before Jemimaville T: 01381 610352 E: info@poyntzfieldherbs.co.uk www.poyntzfieldherbs.co.uk

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This is a long-established nursery, founded by Duncan Ross over 30 years ago, long before the current vogue for herb growing. Duncan is primarily concerned with the healing properties of the plants, the ornamental properties are an added bonus. The catalogue lists up to 400 herbs, grown under organic and biodynamic principles. The range includes British natives and others from further afield, including India, Nepal and Sikkim and more recently from Japan (Kanpo tradition). Some of the very toxic plants such as Aconitum are used for homeopathic remedies, and herbal medicine workshops are held at the nursery. Duncan Ross has produced three booklets: Growers’ Guide to Herb Gardening is a useful guide to herbs and their use, Herbs of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland details traditional uses for native plants, many of which are on sale. The latest is Herbs

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of the Himalaya and India and follows Duncan’s work collecting herbs in Asia. Mail order operates all year round and they sell both small plants and seeds. The walled garden of the imposing pink Poyntzfield House is divided into sections by yew hedges and contains impressive long beds containing the stock plants of the herbs sold by the nursery. This is the key place of pilgrimage in Scotland for anyone interested in herbs.

Reelig Glen Mostly planted by James Baillie Fraser and known as the ‘tall trees walk’, this woodland contains Dughall Mor, a 64m Douglas fir, the tallest tree in Britain (and possibly the tallest in Europe), which is one of a group of trees over 55m tall. Other fine trees include the beech glade planted in 1870, known as the ‘Cathedral’. There are great views from the viewpoint off the higher path and there is an unusual bridge and grotto at the top end of the forest trail.

Reelig Glen Moniack, Beauly, Inverness, IV5 7PQ Forestry Commission 1 mile off the A862 Inverness– Beauly road, approx. 8 miles west of Inverness. Leave the A862, signposted Moniack and Clunes; free Bus service to the Old North Inn on A862 T: 01463 791575 www.forestry.gov.uk

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Sandside Sandside Reay, Sutherland, KW14 7DF Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Minter

By Appointment Along the A836, approx. 10 miles west of Thurso, just west of the Dounreay Nuclear Power Station T: 01847 811540

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This garden demonstrates what a walled garden and a good shelter belt of trees will allow to be grown, even on the north coast of Scotland, where 100 mile an hour winds are not uncommon. The Minters moved here in 1991 and saved the garden, which had been abandoned and become a wilderness. The low-walled sunken garden (to keep it out of the wind) is well designed around two circular lawns, with small beds in the centre. Around these are wide herbaceous borders, with further beds against the walls. Bedding is used to fill in and create bold drifts of colour. The ground rises outside the garden, allowing a good vantage point from which to appreciate the design. From the house, there are views out towards Orkney.

Escallonia is used here as an ornamental and effective windbreak.

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Woodview When I visited this garden in August 2013, I felt that I’d just walked into a collection of parts of RHS show gardens. It turned out that Woodview was to be judged the following day by Carole Baxter for the Inverness Courier Garden of the Year, and that Lynda has taken inspiration for her garden from her many visits to Chelsea. She’s won the garden title before, and I certainly expected her to win again.

Lynda is a professional gardener and garden designer and uses her garden to inspire clients, who need to be warned just how many hours go into keeping a garden to this level. The garden is designed to reach a peak in August, with some of Lynda’s favourite plants: lilies and dahlias. The various garden sections include a rectangular pool with dyed black water, oriental features, a pergola clad with golden hop, raised vegetable beds, a grass chair and a patio with a checkerboard effect including black, white and grass squares. I don’t think I have ever seen so many ideas crammed into such a small area, not more than ⅓ of an acre; the effect is almost overwhelming, but it is also an inspiration, showing how much can be achieved in a small space. Definitely worth a visit on SGS open days in August.

Woodview Highfield, Muir of Ord, Inverness-shire, IV6 7UL Lynda Macleod August 1 day SG, and groups by appointment; ££ Follow signs to Ord Distillery on the A832 Muir of Ord to Marybank. House opposite Clashwood Forest Walk.

Parking in Clashwood T: 01463 871928; M: 07738 574116 E: lynwoodview@yahoo.co.uk

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Orkney Though Orkney does not have any famous must-see gardens, it does have some quirky and charming places to go. I noted a few more gardens that could open, perhaps in groups or villages, as I drove round in summer 2013, not least of which was the amazing roadside rockery just west of Orphir. Botanist the late Elaine Bullard MBE has probably had the most influence on Orkney gardens in her work on native plants, her journalism and in providing invaluable advice on gardening in Orkney’s wet and windy climate; she died in 2011, aged 96. She famously conducted her research into Orkney’s flora in her threewheeler Reliant Robin.

Trumland House, Rousay, Orkney